A Mess of Moments
by foxes
Summary: On the night of Bonnie's 19th birthday, she makes a wish for the circumstances of her life to have changed so that everyone could be safe. She, unknowingly, changed the chain of events in her entire life, especially her relationship with Damon Salvatore.
1. Circumstance

**Circumstance.**

It was September 3, 2011 creeping up into midnight. It was silent in the area around, but it was chaotic in the troubled mind of Bonnie Bennett. She stared at herself in a full-length mirror that hung from the back of her bathroom door, finally taking a moment to herself to notice all the changes she'd unknowingly undergone since her last birthday. She had stared at herself in her bra and underwear from every angle.

She noticed that she'd lost a significant amount of weight; that her hip bones jutted out of her body so sharply that they looked as though they might just rip right through her caramel skin. She noticed her collarbones were also protruding in an attempt to free themselves of her body. Her arms were thinner now. There was no meat around her bones and her cheekbones seemed more defined now as if her face was sinking into itself.

Her stomach was flat, but that wasn't what had worried her. It was the fact that her she inhaled and you could almost see right through her and to her ribcage directly. She faintly placed fingers under her forest green eyes, tracing the dark circles that had permanently formed under them. And her eyes seemed to lack their color. _She_ seemed to lack a handful of life in her these days.

She was too thin. She was drained. She wasn't eating much. She was stressed. She was restless. And in this moment, September 4, 2011 at 12:00am, Bonnie realized just how unhappy she truly was with her life. She finally noticed herself withering, but she never meant to. She was wasting away slowly and she never even noticed. It was disappointing that this was how she was bringing in her 19th year of living, coming to terms with the fact that she was slowly dying to keep someone else alive.

And above all that, she was aging. She was getting older and 90% of everyone she knew would never change in their appearance. They would never have to worry about looking as though the life was slowly being drained out of them.

"Happy Birthday to me," She mumbled sarcastically. "I'm dying."

With a sigh, she pulled the over-sized, black t-shirt over her head. It reached to her mid-thighs and it had belonged to an ex-fling of hers. Bonnie couldn't make out what had become of her life, how it had become such a travesty. It seemed that every step she took was another step closer to her death. The life she lived was dangerous and she was constantly on alert, which is why she never slept. She didn't feel safe to sleep, not in this town. Danger lurked on every inch of its perimeter. Nowhere was safe, not even her own home.

There was a soft knock on the door that snapped Bonnie out of her trance. She scrambled around, trying to remember what she'd come for in the first place.

"Bonnie, are you almost done?" Caroline asked concerned.

"Yeah," Bonnie breathed as she opened the door. "Just had to change is all. I was just about to brush my teeth before I headed to bed."

"This early? No. You're not going to bring in your birthday by automatically sinking into some sort of–" She paused. "–elderly protocol."

At the semi-disgusted, incredulous tone in her voice, Bonnie smiled warmly. At least some things didn't change. That was why she valued Caroline so much lately, because even though their worlds were falling apart – Klaus compelling Stefan to turn off his humanity, turning Tyler into a hybrid, leaving them to deal with the bitch Original Blood-Sucker Barbie version of him, and using Elena as his personal blood bank to form an army of hybrids – She still managed to keep a routine with herself, still managed to hold on to who she was.

"Listen, B, I know things have been a little weird lately..."

"A little?" Bonnie returned skeptically, lifting an eyebrow.

"Fine, I know everything's **super** fucked up right now, but it's your birthday and that's something you should take pride in, something you should celebrate. You can't let the stress of it all keep you from living your life."

"That's easy for you to say with your never-aging and endless, vampire stamina. It feels like I haven't slept in so long and I'm weak." She whined.

"Just stay up for five more minutes and then I promise I'll let you crawl into bed and sleep." Caroline bargained. Bonnie rolled her eyes, fully stepping out of the bathroom.

"Fine, what is it?"

Just as she finished her question, Elena came carefully stalking down the hall, a tiny smile on her face. In her hand, she cradled a small, chocolate cupcake with a single candle lit in its center. Bonnie's features softened. Her entire body relaxed for a moment, took a break from its constant stiffness and paranoia. Her green eyes welled up, but she kept her bottom lip between her teeth to fight off the oncoming tears.

"Happy Birthday to you," Elena and Caroline sang in unison. "Happy Birthday to you. Happy Birthday, dear Bonnie. Happy Birthday to you."

"And many more," Caroline sang solo.

Bonnie felt a bit overwhelmed, but it was nice. It made her heart warm and she felt calm and subtle for the first time since her powers had started to come in, since her Grams died, since she took on being Mystic Falls' personal witch. It was nice and she clung to the feeling. It didn't feel exactly weightless, but the world had definitely considerably eased off of her shoulders for a moment.

"You guys, you're amazing." She said softly.

"We know," Elena sang with a shrug. "Now quick, make a wish!"

"Well, if it goes out, she can just start it back up with that witchy juju lighter trick of hers." Caroline smirked.

Bonnie rolled her eyes playfully, a smile still tugging at her lips. She didn't think that they'd forgotten, no. She just thought that with all that was going on, none of them would really have time or the energy to celebrate her birthday. It didn't seem appropriate to celebrate her life when almost everyone she knew was dead or on the next list of victims to die.

Bonnie stared at the candle, trying to muster up into words what she wished for. Her mind was in a blur, but she was rushing through all the events that led her up to right now where she stood. Though she was very thankful that she was even alive, a part of her just couldn't take anymore of everyone's lives being in constant danger. She couldn't take anymore lies or secrecy. She couldn't take anyone else dying.

She thought about Matt, Tyler, Caroline and Elena. She thought about how they'd all grown up together. She thought about how they'd all planned their lives out with each other. She thought about how all of them, excluding Matt, were now some sort of supernatural being. She thought about how ever since the Salvatores came into town, all they knew was fighting for their lives and clawing at the Earth just to have a future. It shouldn't be like this. They should be safe.

She just wished that things were different and that everyone she loved was safe, that _she _was safe, that the circumstances were different and nobody had to die for Elena's sake.

And just as the thought crossed her mind, she swiftly blew out the candle of the cupcake.

"I sincerely hope you wised for a killer pair of shoes and a to-die-for outfit to magically show up on your doorstep for the party we're planning for you that's tomorrow night at the boardinghouse." Caroline said nonchalantly.

And just like that, the smile was wiped clean off of Bonnie's face. Her eyebrows furrowed together in confusion and she scowled at the baby vampire. Party. At the boarding house. As in the Salvatore boardinghouse. As in the Salvatore brothers. As in one deranged vampire that, under compulsion, had ditched his humanity and another one that was just a world class asshole on his own, humanity intact or not.

"What party? And you better not mean the Salvatore boarding house." Bonnie said sternly, folding her arms over her chest to emphasize authority.

Elena bit her lip nervously, choosing that moment to plead plausible deniability, though she was just as guilty as Caroline. Caroline mimicked Bonnie's stance, unmoving in her decision to throw her a party.

"Your birthday party and yes, the only boardinghouse we know of in this town."

"Care, are you insane? In case you have forgotten, Stefan is a human-ripping machine right now. He will kill everyone on-site, except Elena. No humanity. Did that accidentally slip your mind when you decided this?"

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Elena flinch at the mention of Stefan and shift uncomfortably. She was still trying to cope with the fact that he was gone, that he wasn't her Stefan anymore.

"No, I didn't. I remember perfectly, thank you. Stefan's agreed to behave himself at the party."

"And just how did you manage that?" Bonnie questioned, again, skeptically.

"His only job is to keep Elena safe and Klaus wouldn't be too thrilled if he came back to see that Elena was a vampire all because Stefan couldn't act house-trained."

Bonnie was speechless. Were they serious right now? After a whole year of trying to keep Elena from that, a whole fucking year of trying to keep her alive and human, they were using that as leverage as if it were an option so that they could throw a party? This had to be a joke and Bonnie wasn't laughing.

"No, Damon's still an asshole and I don't want a party. The cupcake and song were enough for me, guys. Tomorrow, I will be spending the entire day practicing spells and eating take-out Chinese food while I watch Love and Basketball until my eyes bleed."

With that, she brushed past the both of them, heading to her room. Their five minutes were up and all she wanted to do was crawl into bed and sleep off the sudden ache in her chest.

"Oh, come _on_, Bonnie!" Caroline whined. "You are _not _blowing off your own birthday party. I won't let you. I don't care if Stefan's practically insane or that Damon's Damon. You're going and you'll have fun. You're going to drink until the entire world is spinning and dance until your legs are numb. I haven't seen you loosen up in forever, Bonnie and I just want you to have one night of no worries."

Bonnie sighed, immediately feeling just a bit guilty. She was defeated and tired. She knew that Caroline would nag her until she got _something _out of her.

"Look, I'm tired. I'll think about it. We can talk about it in the morning, but for now, I want to sleep."

"Absolutely," Caroline quickly agreed, nodding.

Bonnie rolled her eyes, turning her back to them, and dragged herself into her bed. She had to sleep on the edge to make room for both Caroline and Elena, too, but she didn't mind. She was used to that when they had sleepovers. She could feel Caroline smirking victoriously behind her and in thought, she reminded herself to muster up the energy to say no to the party in the morning after she was well-rested, whatever that even meant for her anymore.

* * *

><p>Bonnie had no idea what was going on. She stood barefoot, clad in her black, over-sized t-shirt, on the side of the road in the middle of the night. She cursed under her breath. She was having those dreams again, the ones that dropped her body off in the middle of fucking nowhere while she slept.<p>

She hugged herself closely to fight off the cold air of the night, but it nipped and bit at her exposed body. She looked around, taking in her surroundings. She was standing at one end of Wickery Bridge. Confused, she quickly looked around to make sure nothing was lurking, because her gut was telling her that something was terribly off. Something was wrong.

Just as the thought came, she noticed headlights nearing in the distance. As they came closer, her eyes became too sensitive of the light too stand it and so she shielded them, not before she caught a glimpse of Elena's father, Grayson Gilbert, with a look of fear on his face. It all happened in a blur then, very quickly. She then heard the screeching of the car's tires as he had attempted to break and stop the vehicle, but it spiraled. Bonnie's eyes were widened and her breath was caught in her throat as she watched the car topple off of the bridge and side-ways into the water below.

She just witnessed the death of her best friend's parents.

A whimper was all the sound that Bonnie could make, because she knew this was wrong. Stefan was supposed to save Elena. Stefan was supposed to come and he was supposed to get her out before she died along with her parents. Her mind in chaos and a cluster of nonsensical, backwards thought, Bonnie frantically looked around, screaming Stefan's name. She then ran, but her knees were weak. Her whole body was shutting down. She ran with tears streaming down her face, screaming for him as if her own life depended on it.

"Stefan, where the fuck are you!"

But he wasn't there. He wouldn't respond, because he wasn't there and this was a dream. The world around began to shake and Bonnie's knees gave way and buckled under her. She fell to the ground, crumbled in on herself, and tried to clutch to the Earth under her. She felt herself slowly drifting back and before she could register the span of events, she was sat pin-straight up in bed, coughing and crying like she hadn't been able to breathe and her body was still rejecting air.

She felt a warm pair of strong arms snake themselves securely around her waist – her _nude _waist – while she sobbed and choked for air.

"It was just a dream, baby. It was just a dream." Damon said soothingly in her ear – _Damon_.

Bonnie froze, her breathing still deep and trying to regain composure, but her entire body was suddenly stiff as Damon held her as close to him as he possibly could, kissing her temple, telling her over and over that it was just a bad dream, that he was there, that she was _safe_. **With him**. Damon.

"Are you okay now?" He asked her, noticing that she was still and her breathing was slowly becoming calmer.

Bonnie turned her head slightly to catch a glimpse of him and the concerned look on his face. She was naked. In bed. With Damon Salvatore. She focused all of her energy then and Damon's head filled with a sudden rush of pain, causing him to fall back into bed, arching his back as it grew. Bonnie then jumped out of bed, taking his silk sheets with her and wrapping them around her body.

"What the hell, Bonnie!" Damon yelled at her. "What was that for?"

"What the hell was it for?" She asked him incredulously. "How did I get here?" A beat of silence passed. "Did _Caroline _put you up to this as some kind of sick birthday joke?" She asked angrily. Damon's face twisted up with both anger and confusion.

"What? Why would Caroline need to put me up to anything when it comes to you? And how you got here? You practically _live _here."

Her blood was boiling. She knew that Caroline wanted her to loosen up a bit, but this was too far. This was too low, even for a Caroline-enthused joke. She started magically inducing aneurysms in Damon's head again so heavy that he clawed at his skull.

"Stop!" He begged.

"Tell me what's going on!" She snapped.

That's when Stefan intervened, unable to endure the noise anymore. He walked in, no shirt, only pajama pants. Trailing behind him was a very confused, messy-haired Caroline who clung to his forearm in fear that Bonnie would aim one of those headaches at her. She was dressed only in a button-up shirt that belonged to Stefan. The sudden distraction made Bonnie ease up on Damon, because she was now trying to figure out why Caroline was here.

"What the hell is going on in here?" Stefan asked.

"She woke up from a bad dream and went bat shit crazy on me!" Damon exclaimed. "She used her witchy juju brain explosions on me. _Me_!"

The tone in his voice was shocked, confused and slightly pained.

"Who put me in his bed?" Bonnie yelped.

"Uh, you did?" Caroline answered carefully. Damon was right. Bonnie was going bat shit crazy and none of them knew why, but she wasn't in the mood for an aneurysm. "You've been putting yourself there for a while."

"Caroline," Bonnie warned.

Caroline squeaked and Stefan placed himself protectively in front of her. That didn't go unnoticed by Bonnie, the way Stefan was letting her cling to him, the way Stefan looked almost murderous at the threatening tone in Bonnie's voice toward Caroline.

"Know what? Screw all of you." She muttered.

She grabbed a random pile of clothing off of Damon's floor and made her way into his bathroom, slamming the door behind her. Stefan looked at Damon, his head cocked to the side in question.

"I don't even fucking know, man." He answered before Stefan had the chance to ask.

* * *

><p><strong>Disclaimer: Sadly, I don't own TVD. That's the CW and L. J. Smith.<strong>


	2. Details, Details

**AN**: _Thanks for all the feedback and favorites and putting this story on alert! It means a whole lot to me. Now, this chapter really is sort of boring. It's explanatory, for the most part. Nothing really happens. It's also really long, sorry. Regardless, enjoy!_

* * *

><p><strong>Details, Details.<strong>

When Bonnie came out of the bathroom just minutes later, Damon, Stefan and Caroline had vacated the bedroom. Bonnie, dressed in a shirt that was too big to belong to her and a pair of jeans that were thankfully hers, she marched downstairs, intending to leave the boardinghouse, go back home, and try to forget the entirety of this morning. As she reached the end of the staircase, she noticed a shirtless Damon waiting there for her.

"So that's where my shirt went." He mused with a smirk. "Looks better on you anyway."

He figures if she's wearing his shirt openly and shamelessly, she couldn't be _that _mad at him. When Bonnie was mad at him, which was rare in his case, she swore off of all things Damon until the matters had been resolved.

"Get out of my way." She snapped at him.

The look on Damon's face was hurt, nearly broken, but he tried to hide it with a frail mask of anger, but Bonnie, he knew, could see right through it. He'd come so far from the spineless saint he was in 1864 over the love of a woman and he never wanted to go back there, but Bonnie was that blow to his humanity that shattered that rough exterior he'd been building up to keep it out. But only for her and her alone (and sometimes Stefan). She effortlessly had kicked down all those walls and made Damon hers and her his.

He'd never come out with it, never said that he loved her. Everyone knew that he only openly loved his brother, but if he said those words to Bonnie, she might feel inclined to stay with him even if she no longer wanted to be there. To him, telling her he loved her would be too selfish, even for him.

"What did I do wrong?" He asked.

"If I actually stood here and listed all of the things you've done wrong, all of the lives you've ruined, I'm afraid I might never get to leave."

Her tone was cold and murderous. If words were weapons, then hers were knives and they were repeatedly cutting through him. And she hoped they hurt him. Bonnie hoped that her words were sharp enough to cut through him and make him realize all that he had known, but if only she'd known that his list of things he'd done wrong since coming back into Mystic Falls was short and he owed that all to her.

She brushed past him and he let her, clenching his jaw, trying to keep himself intact. Damon knew that Bonnie was the one thing that could destroy him, but he never thought she would use that knowledge. He never thought she'd look him in the eyes and dismantle him entirely with her words just because she could.

"Bonnie, that was uncalled for." Caroline said softly.

Bonnie scoffed, continuing for the door. Damon's back was turned to her. He hadn't moved from his spot at the foot of the staircase. He was trying to register her words, trying to make himself angry. Because it was the only way to turn it off. He couldn't flip the switch when he was drowning in his own humanity.

"So, I'm just going to assume the birthday lunch with your Grams, the invites are no longer extended to any of us then?" Caroline questioned, suddenly brave.

Bonnie stopped in her tracks, just for a moment. That feeling in her gut rose again, the feeling that sent off signals throughout her body that something wasn't right, that things had shifted and were no longer centered. The balance had been tipped. Bonnie's hands became anxious. Her whole body was buzzing with intense curiosity. Before anyone could mention another word to her, she had bolted for the door.

Outside, confusingly so, her car was parked outside the boardinghouse. Bonnie thought that if she left, things would start making sense again, that the rising ache in her chest, which was just a cluster of stress and confusion, would subside. Caroline's words reverberated around her brain. Her Grams. She talked as if her Grams was actually still alive. And it was a sick joke, but even Bonnie didn't think Caroline would go _that _far.

Bonnie climbed into her little bubble of a car, started the engine and without even turning back to think about the things she'd just said and done to Damon in the span of half an hour, she sped off. She just wanted to get as far from the boardinghouse as she could. She continuously eyed her cell phone placed inside one of the cup-holders. She bit down on her lip nervously, tossing around theories in her head.

Before she knew it, she was running her fingers across the keypad, dialing the number she'd been so used to dialing when she needed someone, a number that had been out of service in the surreal moments after her death, but now, it rang. Her Grams' phone rang. Her heart skipped a beat momentarily, only a beat, but sped up quickly after that. On the third ring, she had a thick glob of disappointment sitting in the back her throat.

When her Grams answered, she was choking on it.

"You're up early." She heard her say.

Hearing her Grams' voice again–clear and healthy–felt so bizarre to her. She felt delirious. She thought that maybe she was rapidly inching towards the cusps of insanity, because in reality, her Grams was dead. She was gone, because of Elena's recklessness. She was gone because of Elena's need to be the martyr. She was gone because of Stefan's love for Elena and her own love for both Stefan and Elena.

But maybe this wasn't _her _reality.

"Grams?" Bonnie asked softly, her eyes welling up with tears. "Is that really you?"

"Child, who else would I be? You sound troubled. Where are you?"

"Um, I, um…" Bonnie was stumbling over her words. "I–I just left the boardinghouse."

"Finally got sick of that Salvatore? I knew it was a matter of time. Poor boy's ego is much bigger than your patience." Bonnie giggled through her tears. "Come on home, I'll make you an early birthday breakfast."

"Okay," Bonnie agreed immediately.

* * *

><p>When she pulled into her Grams' driveway, the ache in her chest slowly faded out. She didn't feel so out of her element anymore. The power that surrounded the home, it comforted Bonnie. And that weight she was so used to carrying around on her shoulders, it was lifted then and she felt weightless. She approached the front door apprehensively, fearful that when she opened the door, she'd walk into the home of the woman who bought out her Grams' home in an auction after she'd passed.<p>

Before she could even reach for the doorknob, the door opened to reveal a smirking Grams on the other side. Impulsively, Bonnie attached herself to the elderly women, causing her to let out a grunt at the sudden impact. With an amused chuckle, Grams linked her arms around her granddaughter.

"Damon must have really messed up this time, huh?"

Bonnie pulled back, wiping the tears from her eyes, but they never seemed to end. Grams pulled her inside, shutting the door behind her.

"It's not Damon that messed up, Grams. It's everything. Something's wrong." And just like that, Bonnie rambled out her confusions in a rush. "Last night I was with Elena and Caroline. They made me a cupcake and sang me a song, but when I went to sleep, I had this dream that I watched Elena, Grayson, and Miranda's car drive off of Wickery Bridge and Stefan didn't come to save Elena like he did before when it happened. Then, there was an earthquake and it knocked me on the ground.

"The next thing I know, I wake up choking. And that's not the weirdest part; I woke up next to Damon Salvatore _naked_. I can barely tolerate to sit in the same room with him and I woke up to him comforting and kissing me. It was wrong. So when I used my power to give him an aneurysm, Stefan and Caroline came gallivanting in the room half-dressed. And Stefan is insane right now. He's in ripper mode! Moreover, Caroline knows that Elena loves him. Why would she do that?

"And now, you're alive. You're here. You're supposed to be dead. You and I, we opened the tomb for Damon so he could get Katherine, but when he went in, he was sealed in. But Elena went in with him, but she was attacked so Stefan ran in and that's when we broke the seal completely so Stefan could get out. And that spell was so hard on you, it killed you. I don't know what's going on and–"

Her Grams silenced her then, placing a hand over Bonnie's mouth. Bonnie was stressed out and confused. Every sentence ran out of her mouth in a blur, but her Grams caught all of it.

"Calm down now, Bonnie." Grams urged, removing her hand. "Now tell me, slowly, what happened when Elena and Caroline brought you a cupcake last night. Don't leave anything out."

Bonnie took a deep breath before sitting down on floor, leaning her head back against the wall. She just needed to sit. She needed to take a moment to herself and breathe, because she felt like this was going to turn into something she couldn't handle in a matter of minutes.

"They sang 'Happy Birthday' to me. Elena was kind of off key. And then they told me to make a wish. After I made my wish, Caroline started going on about a party."

"What was your wish?"

"That things were different, that the circumstances were different and that we were all safe. I just wished that none of us had to die for Elena's sake." She admitted a bit shamefully.

Grams left the entrance way of her home momentarily. Bonnie pulled to her feet and followed her into the kitchen silently. She watched as her grandmother poured her a cup of hot tea and placed it right there in front of her, a worried look in her eye.

"Drink that. The herbs in the tea will keep you calm."

Reluctantly, Bonnie took the teacup in her hands, sipping the tea cautiously to avoid scolding her tongue. As soon as it slid its way down her throat, Bonnie's insides felt warm and peaceful. All the clusters of stress that were caching up in her mind were breaking apart and dissolving. With each sip, she was slowly being put to ease.

"As witches, we're merely servants of nature. We're meant to keep a balance of everything: life and death, love and hate, happiness and sadness. The spirits give you your gifts so that you uphold this balance and service nature. As you get older, you get stronger and your services never go unappreciated to the spirits. On a witches birthday, depending on how deserving they feel the witch is, spirits give him or her a token of appreciation."

"Like, a gift?" Bonnie questioned, cocking up an eyebrow. Grams nodded.

"To my knowledge, as long as it doesn't upset the balance, they'll give you a wish, any wish. And in your case, this circumstance you asked for aided the balance out more than it did upset it."

"What do you mean? So the spirits granted my birthday wish? How?"

Her Grams hesitated a moment, trying to find a way to ease into this part. No matter how much tea Bonnie consumed, this next part would hurt and there was nothing that could calm a broken heart.

"Everything we do, every choice we make, it sets things in motion. A simple action can set a whole new path for a person and all the lives surrounding them. You take that act away and it keeps things on the path that they were going. Stefan saving Elena changed things. I'm sure you know what Elena was and the danger surrounding it."

"She's the doppelgänger. She's how Klaus broke the curse on his werewolf side and how he makes more hybrids out of other werewolves." Grams simply nodded. She hadn't known that much, just that Mikael came years ago and wanted the doppelgänger dead. "She's why he came here in the first place."

"And you take the doppelgänger out of the picture, there's no way to break the curse, no way make hybrids, no way for anyone to put in danger, no way for anyone to for anyone to die for her."

It took a moment, but Bonnie understood what she meant. The only way Bonnie's wish could be granted was if they took away the very thing that set that whole string of events in motion: the night that Stefan saved Elena from dying on Wickery Bridge. That meant that, because of her wish, Elena was dead. She had been for a couple years now. She suffered the same fate as her parents.

"Elena's dead." She said, barely above a whisper.

She could feel the effects of the tea keeping her calm, but it couldn't ease that raw ache in her heart. It kept her from hysterically lashing out – much like remembered doing when her grams died – but she began to lightly cry all over again. She meant to keep them all safe, not kill off her best friend.

"Now, Bonnie, don't you go blaming yourself for this."

"When I made the wish, I didn't mean for her to die!" She exclaimed.

"Baby, we never mean for people to die."

"So what am I supposed to do? How do I fix this?" Bonnie asked frantically. "How am I supposed to fix the balance now if she's dead? How do I bring her back?"

Grams looked her dead in the eyes and said, "You can't fix what's not broken."

* * *

><p>It took a while, an hour or so, for Bonnie to collect herself. Her head hurt and her heart hurt. If guilt were a beast, well it had swallowed her whole. But she knew she couldn't hang on to this. There were other things she needed to be explained to her, like Damon and her. Stefan and Caroline. Grams' living.<p>

"Are you okay now?" Grams asked.

Yes. Perfectly fine. I killed my best friend, no big deal.

"I'm as okay as I could be with that bomb of information. I just have other questions that I know need to be answered, like: What is going on between Damon and I? What's going on between Stefan and Caroline? How are you alive? Since Elena's dead, what's happened? Why are the Salvatores even here if she's not?"

All Sheila could do was laugh.

"One at a time now, child."

"Why are the Salvatores still here?"

"Stefan, to my knowledge, has been here since 2009, but he tried to keep quiet and lay low. That's how he met Caroline. On the night of Elena and her parent's death, Caroline came here delirious. Your father was on a business trip and you were staying with me. She was in a frenzy about how an animal had just attacked her and she'd barely escaped, but I knew better. That was a vampire bite on her neck and she'd been compelled to think it was an animal, run to her most trusted friend, and seek help."

So that's where Stefan was. He was off drinking Caroline while Elena was drowning.

"That's when I knew vampires were back, but Stefan hadn't shown his face to the town until the next year. He got a job at the Grill out of nowhere. I remember you said you thought he was sweet on Caroline, because he was always making sure that she was accommodated, always making sure she was okay, but when you touched him, you _felt_ death. My guess was that he had a small relapse into his old ways and he felt guilty for hurting her."

"So he stalked her, because he bit her?" Bonnie asked.

"There's more to the story, but I think it's Stefan's story to tell you."

"Okay and why is Damon still here? I know he came, because he wanted Katherine out of the tomb."

"Well, the simple answer to the question would be you." Sheila said, chuckling as Bonnie scrunched up her face in disgust. "But yes, he came because of the comet. Emily told him when the comet came, the tomb could be opened. Damon was using one of your friends from school as an on-site blood bag and when he was through with her, she gave the necklace to Caroline. But being Caroline, she thought it was ugly, so she said you could have it if you wanted it.

"That's the day you came to me with it and finally accepted what you were. We dived into our ancestor's history and you began to embrace what you were. But Damon started following you around, because he wanted it back, but you had to willingly give him it so that he could touch it without it trying to kill him. You lied to him and told him if he told you what he wanted it for and the reason wouldn't anyone in town, he could have it.

"You'd been having these dreams ever since getting the amulet about the tomb and Emily telling you that what was inside could never get out. So when Damon told you he wanted the tomb open so he could Katherine and then he would leave Mystic Falls, you said no, but Damon wouldn't leave you alone."

"This story went much differently in my original reality. How did I find out about vampires if Elena wasn't around, because I found out from her?" Bonnie asked.

"Damon showed you what he really was the first night he asked for that necklace and you said no. He couldn't compel you to give it to him, because you're a witch, so he was just going to scare you and get it off of you."

"Damon tried to kill me?"

"No, he tried to scare you. He couldn't kill you, because he'd promised Emily he'd watch after her line to make sure that it continued and he did. I remembered his face the moment I saw it. He needed you to get that tomb open. When you found out what he was, you found out what Stefan was as well and you tried to keep Caroline away from him, away from the Grill when he worked, because you thought he would hurt her.

"But Caroline is hard-headed and went over to the boardinghouse when Stefan invited her. In his bedroom, she found the picture of Katherine and she took it from him, because she looked exactly like Elena. That's the night you and I had to tell her what they both were, what we were, and you used your own magic to prove that you weren't lying. She confronted him about the picture, about why she looked exactly like Elena. And he told her, as far as I know. From him attacking her to his past, he told her everything. And so she told you.

"We wanted to open the tomb, lure them both inside, and set fire to it. Caroline begged us not to. She didn't want anything to happen to Stefan, because she said he was good, but she said Stefan wouldn't let anything happen to Damon, no matter how bad he was. We let that child talk us into a séance to find out what Emily wanted from you, because she kept trying to contact you in your dreams.

"But she took control over your body and that night she destroyed the necklace that was needed to open up the tomb, but she said where her grimoire was: In the Salvatore's father's grave."

"I know this part. We opened the tomb, but Katherine wasn't in it. So how are you alive?" Bonnie asked. Her eyebrows knitted together in confusion.

"Let me finish my story." Grams told her. "Caroline told Stefan we were going to dig up his father's grave, because we wanted to destroy what was inside the tomb. Stefan let us, but asked that we let Katherine out so Damon would just leave town and no one else would get hurt. The night you and I went into the tomb, we set fire to the vampires inside who weren't Katherine. And that turned out to be every, single one of them, so…"

"We didn't have to use all that power to break the seal completely to let her out and you lived."

Things were so different now. The chain of events were all scattered and out of place from the way they had happened in her mind. That means none of the tomb vampires ever got out. That means Katherine didn't have to send John and Isobel with the device. That means Jenna lived. That also meant that Jeremy was alone.

"You, Stefan and I told Damon about our little escapade of the night. How we went in the tomb and we planned to let Katherine out so he would leave town, but we were going to kill all of the other vampires. So when he asked where Katherine was, we had to tell him that she wasn't in the tomb. Damon thought we were lying, saying we didn't even know what Katherine looked like.

"Caroline pulls out a picture of you, her, and Elena and tells him that Katherine looks exactly like Elena and that's what you and I had looked for, but didn't find. Damon was quiet at first, but then he told us all to leave. We did, all of us, except you. You never told me what was said and Stefan didn't either, but you did tell me that whatever happened in that room after everyone left was the most human you'd seen in him since he'd come. And that you knew his humanity was still there. So you promised that since she wasn't in the tomb, you'd help him find her."

"That doesn't explain how I ended up with him." Bonnie noted.

"I think you were 'with' Damon before you even knew you were. You started spending more time with him, trying to help him locate Katherine. That's when your dad got a promotion with his job, up and moved to Seattle. When Damon found out, he was livid. He thought you'd gone with him."

"My dad lives in Seattle?" Bonnie asked incredulously.

Grams nodded. Bonnie had known that her dad wanted that promotion, but that was around the time that Grams had died, so she knew he'd turned it down. He thought Bonnie needed to stay around her friends for support, but now, because Grams was here, Bonnie's dad let her stay and he went alone.

"He gave you the choice to stay or go and you chose to stay with me."

"So why'd he think I'd gone to Seattle?"

"Because he hadn't seen or heard from you in days. You left one morning for school and two days later, Damon showed up at my door, demanding to know why I let you go with him. Of course, that didn't fly with me and I had on his knees in seconds, but that's when I told him you called and said you were staying with Caroline for a couple of days and not to worry. And Damon informed me that Caroline had been at the boardinghouse with Stefan.

"That's when we all figured out you'd been taken by a vampire, Anna. She was angry when she'd found out that the tomb had gone up in flames and you and I were the ones to do it. She tortured you for the two days she had you, but I located you and Stefan and Damon went for you. From what you told me, Damon ripped the poor girl's heart right out of her chest and tossed it aside like it was nothing.

"After that, you started going out to The Grill to see Damon. I would ask you, 'New leads on Katherine?' and you just said, 'No, just to hang out.' That started to happen every day, just going to hang out. Before I knew it, you were asking me how I'd feel if you wanted to be with a vampire. You started telling me how Caroline and Stefan were dating and they were making it work. You tricked into going to dinner with you and Damon just so I could see that he had changed and he wasn't dangerous anymore."

Bonnie couldn't help but let out a laugh. In her reality, she could never see herself loving Damon. **Ever**. But here, it seems as though that's all she'd ever done was care for him.

"So now I'm dating Damon, the one person I can hardly sit in the same room with. And Caroline is dating Stefan, the guy who told her they were never going to happen. Is she still human here?"

"She is, but her mother knows about the Salvatores. It took her a while to accept it."

"And Tyler? Matt? Jenna? Jeremy? Alaric? What about all of them."

"I don't know so much about Tyler and Matt. You don't ever mention them, but I know Damon is helping Alaric look for his wife. And Jenna sent Jeremy to live in Denver with other family, because he got out of control, but she's fine."

Bonnie took a moment to let it all sink in before she sighed. Aside from her being kidnapped, nothing happened here. This town was safe. She was safe. Her friends were safe. And all it took was Elena dying on Wickery Bridge with her parents, but that was one price she wasn't willing to pay.

"So is there a spell that will reverse the wish?"

"Child, this is magic that isn't on a level of just witchcraft. This is the spirits' working. I can look around and I can try, but as of now, your best bet is to blend in until your next birthday so you can make another wish to reverse it."

* * *

><p><strong>Disclaimer: Sadly, I don't own TVD. That's the CW and L. J. Smith.<strong>


	3. Happiness Is

**Happiness Is.**

Damon sat at the foot of his king-sized bed, his shoulders slumped, a drink in hand. All he could do was drink it off and hope that she came back. He didn't know how to feel, how he even should feel, if they were done, if she really hated him that much, if this was all a waste of time, if she ever cared at all. The Bonnie he saw today, that wasn't a side of her he was at all familiar with.

The Bonnie he knew, she was bubbly and she was happy. She was carefree and she had enough life in her to share with him when he couldn't find it in himself. The Bonnie that he woke up to, she was angry. She was confused and she was on edge. She was spiteful and shaking with anxiety. Damon tries to remember when he'd ever seen that look in her eyes, the one that was full of shameless hatred for him.

Never, not even when he deserved it.

He remembers the night that, for him, it began. He'd never seen her as more than just a means to an end once he got what he wanted. He saw Bonnie as the end of his obligations to the Bennett line, but the joke was on him, because with the end of his obligation came the beginning of his obsession, the crack in the dam that separated him from his humanity and any affection that he could feel for anything other than Katherine.

* * *

><p><em>He demanded that they all leave. <em>

_That's all he wanted, to be alone, because it hurt to hear and he didn't want any of them to see him vulnerable. He didn't want them to use his one weak moment to tear him down. How could she not be there? If she'd been out the entire time, where was she and why hadn't she come for him? He just wanted answers. If Katherine didn't want him, all he wanted was to hear her say so. _

_She wouldn't be the first one to not want him. She wouldn't be the last._

_Damon stood with his back turned, staring out of the window and he could feel her presence there. He could feel her judgmental eyes boring into his back. She was stupid. She was respectably brave, but stupid._

"_I told you to leave." He spoke, not bothering to look at her._

"_And I wasn't done talking, so I decided to stay." Bonnie retorted._

_In a beat, Damon stood face-to-face with her, his angry eyes glaring down at her. They were so blue and seemed too bright and full of life to belong to someone so dark and dead inside. His jaw ticked, but she didn't budge. Damon no longer scared her, because she knew better now. She was stronger and anything he could bring at her, she could bring back full circle, ten times harder._

"_Do you realize I could tear your heart out of your chest without a second thought?"_

"_And do you realize before you even touched me, I could have you on your knees and up in flames?" She returned. And it brought a laugh out of Damon._

_This tiny thing, she was so full of attitude and it thrilled him. He hadn't met anyone with so much drive and confidence in a long time. She stood before him, arms folded over her chest and power buzzing around her like she was a magnet for it. It clung to her like a parasite. He hadn't met any witch whose scent was pure, raw, untamed power like hers. She was rogue and high on her magic._

"_You witches, so full of yourselves." This made Bonnie scoff._

"_So what upsets you more?" Bonnie asks. "The fact that Katherine wasn't in the tomb or the fact that she's alive out there somewhere and knows you are, too, but just never bothered to look for you?"_

_Tick._

"_Watch your mouth, witch." He warned._

"_Is it because that's yet another person who wants nothing to do with you?"_

_Tick. Growl._

"_Or is it because the one person who was supposed to give a damn about your pathetic sob story of a life, turns out, couldn't give a single ounce of a fuck about you? Is it because she didn't love you enough to come back for you?"_

_And that was when she saw it in his eyes, him break and the single tear that fell before he had her pinned against the wall by her throat. His eyes were bloodshot and the veins were pulsing underneath them. His fangs were bared, but she knew he wouldn't kill her, because she wouldn't let him. Not even a moment later, he was on the ground, clutching his skull trying to ground out the pain with his nails._

_When she stopped, he came back to his feet, blood boiling. Things within his vicinity, he broke, because she obviously couldn't be hurt unless he wanted that again._

"_You know, I don't like you." She finally said after minutes of standing and watching him. "I think you're vile and the way you have no regards for human life, it disgusts me."_

_Again, she made him laugh._

"_What's that supposed to mean to me, witchy? This was public knowledge."_

"_I'll help you find her." She told him, disregarding his prior comment. It made it him stop where he was and just look at her for a moment._

"_Why would you help me? What happened to: Oh, Damon, you're so pathetic with your sob story. Nobody loves you. I don't like you. I hate that you don't care about human life! Cue judgey eyes." Bonnie rolled her eyes._

"_Because if I help you look for her, knowing we won't find her, maybe you'll stop and suddenly realize that it's a lost cause trying to find something you could never lose, because it was never yours. You'll realize you're holding on to a lost cause. We love people, Damon, but unless they are a part of us, share our blood, we won't always love them. They come and they go, but in over a century of living, you still haven't grasped that concept. People leave. That's life._

"_And you know, you are pathetic, really. You do anything for attention. You come here and kill people just to piss Stefan off, just to let him know you were here. You want people to associate you with something they feel and since you assume no one can love you, you can make them hate you, but it's the things you do that make people hate you. It's not you, Damon. It's your choices. You're a pathetic person, because you intentionally make the wrong choice just to make someone feel something for you."_

_He simply stared at her, letting her words sink into him. She knew, yes, that he was vulnerable. The way he'd reacted to the news about Katherine told her that he still had his humanity and now was the perfect time to strike until she broke the barrier that kept it out and let it resurface in him. With that, she headed for the door._

"_My offer's on the table. If you're not at The Grill tomorrow at 4 sharp, I'll know you don't want it and I'll expect you to leave my town without a second's notice. Goodnight, Damon." And with that, she left._

_Damon stood there, swallowing his pride whole, already having decided that he would take her up on her offer and telling himself, "Well, it's the least she could do"._

* * *

><p>"Damon," Bonnie said softly.<p>

Damon snapped out of his trance, pulled his head out of that cloud full of nostalgia, and came back to now. He looked over her, not saying a word. He hadn't heard her come, because he was subconsciously occupied with his memories of hearing her leave.

Bonnie stood before him, uncomfortable as ever, telling herself over and over to blend. She could do this. She could pretend that she was in love with him just until her Grams found a reversal spell. But if she didn't, then what? Was she going to tell him: Oh, hi. I'm Bonnie from an alternate reality. I got dumped here because of a birthday wish the spirits gave me. I'm totally sorry for pretending that I actually loved you.

"What do you want?" Damon asked, his voice full of spite. "Come to push your knife in further? No worries, I'll save you the time and drive a stake through my heart instead."

"Cut the dramatics, Damon, really." Bonnie sighed.

No matter what reality she existed in, no version of Bonnie Bennett ever took any kind of melodramatic snark from any version of Damon Salvatore.

"I came to apologize to you for this morning." She informed him.

Damon's hostility melted and a smirk crawled across his face. Bonnie Bennett apologizing? This would be a sight to see. He stood and approached her, folding his arms over his chest.

"I'm listening, witch."

"That dream I had, it was vivid and it was a life that you and I didn't get along. It felt like I had lived there my entire life, so when I woke up, I admit I was totally confused. I think my magic went wonky. I was having a lot of trouble picking apart what was reality and what wasn't, but I shouldn't have hurt you. I'm sorry."

Technically, it wasn't a lie.

Damon looked her over for a moment, the smirk still on his face before he said, "So your juju finally drove you kuku? Giving it up to be a vampire doesn't sound so stupid now, does it?"

"No, that sounds _extremely_ stupid."

He let out a short chuckle before pressing his lips to hers and inside, Bonnie panicked. Her eyes went wide, but what should she have expected? This was her – cringe – boyfriend, but at least his lips were soft and he wasn't rough. In fact, he was so gentle with his kiss that it almost seemed as if he thought she would break apart. It was short for Damon, just a peck, but it seemed to last forever for Bonnie.

When he pulled back, he just looked at her for a moment, a hand pushing a curl of her messy hair behind her ear. Was this what he always did? Creepily gaze at her? Was this romance?

"Do you feel better?" He asked.

"Much," She lied in a squeak.

The afternoon finally came in and things seemed to gradually get normal. Damon wasn't clingy. Bonnie would sit and talk to Caroline just like they used to, but Damon and Stefan would stay on the other sides of rooms or in other rooms entirely. This made her feel better, that maybe it would be easier if he didn't feel the constant need to be around her. Or touch her. Or romantically – creepily – gaze at her. Or kiss her.

Her grams withdrew her invitation for lunch, telling Bonnie that she needed to get a handle on things and learn how to be around her friends again. So as of now, Bonnie and Caroline were in Damon's room, standing in the middle of the abnormally large closet that he and her apparently shared, looking for an outfit for Bonnie's birthday party tonight. Apparently in this life, she encouraged birthday parties and drinking until she toppled.

"I think you should wear something a bit revealing, but not so much that it will have Damon snapping the necks of any guy that looks your way. And by guys, I mean Matt."

"Matt Donovan? What?"

"Yeah," Caroline nodded. "He's totally into you and don't give me any of that – he knows we're just friends – bullshit, because I know. He's basically asking for an invite to eye fuck whenever you're in the same room and you know that Damon won't go for that. I get it. You were majorly there for him when Elena died, but you're taken. He needs to get over it now."

"Caroline!" Bonnie scolded.

"If Damon even sees him glance at you, you know he'll try to kill him. So dress better than everyone else while not dressing so good, it gives Matt a reason to look at you."

"Damon knows I love him." Bonnie said, though it took all of her.

She was trying to remain indifferent to all new information presented to her. She had to blend, sound like she knew all of these things already. But saying she loved Damon out loud was crossing the 'bizarre' line. That was nothing she thought she'd ever live to hear herself say.

"What are you wearing?" Bonnie asked.

"Something sexy, because Stefan and I are having a bit of a tiff and I want him to see what he'll be missing for the next couple of nights."

"How are you fighting? You were all for each other this morning." She noted.

"He's in one of his broody, I-need-to-write-in-my-diary moods. He doesn't like me right now."

"Well he's still in the house, which means, he can probably hear your plans." Caroline looked at her, bewildered, as if she were stupid or slowly losing her mind.

"Your magic really screwed you up in the brain. You put spells on certain areas of the house we're normally in so they couldn't hear us talking."

"Oh, right. Sorry, I'm still trying to unscramble it all. I might be a little scatter-brained for a while." Bonnie admitted sheepishly. "But um, speaking of Stefan, one thing that's still unclear, what happened that night Stefan attacked you? In my dream, he sort of turned you down for Elena."

To that, Caroline blew her hair out of her face, knowing that if Elena were still alive, he probably would have chosen Elena over her. That's just how it was. Elena was the 'first choice' kind of girl. Caroline, versus Elena, just was not. She didn't really like talking about the night Stefan attacked her, because she knew nobody would ever understand how she could love him now after what he did then.

"I hate talking about it." Caroline sighed. "But that night he attacked me, he tried to come on to me, but I told him no, that I just wanted to get home, so he compelled me to be willing."

Bonnie face scrunched up in confusion. Stefan forced himself on her and forced her to be okay with it?

"Oh don't give me the judgmental eyes!" Caroline whined. "His compulsion was weak. He hadn't been feeding on humans. His compulsion after he bit me still wasn't that strong, because it was only a bite. It was breaking. I could remember tidbits here and there. I thought it was just some really wonky dream. He says he saw something break in me after, when he watched me. He said he thought he stole the life out of me."

"Stefan doesn't sound like the raping type." Bonnie mused.

"That's because he isn't. He was going insane. He was hunting for blood. He was in predator mode. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, drunkenly stumbling through the woods. And you've seen what he's like when he gets like that. He's like this whole other person."

"Just because you love him doesn't make it okay." She said quietly, trying not to upset her.

"You're the only person who knows and I thought we were past the judgment phase, because if memory serves me correctly, you're dating the same guy who pinned you to a wall and tried to choke you to death, killed Matt's sister and compelled him to think she ran away, and killed all of those people when he came here. Just because you love him doesn't make it okay, but you forgave him, because it's in the past and he's not the same Damon he was."

Caroline shuffled through the racks of clothes, in search of something for Bonnie to wear. This is why she hated talking about it, because when she said it aloud, it made her question the validity of her relationship with Stefan. What he did wasn't something that should just be justified by the fact that it wasn't him or that it was in the past. He hurt her. He would have killed her. How could she overlook that?

"Care, I didn't mean to upset you." Bonnie said softly. "You're right. If I can forgive Damon for trying to kill me and still love him, you can forgive Stefan."

The look Caroline gave her, it was full of pain, confusion, and doubt.

"But what if I am wrong? What if I shouldn't love him? I'm new to this. I've never had anyone love me like that and I've never loved anyone to say I know that I'm in love. It could be wrong and I'm just kidding myself because he's Stefan. He's the guy every girl wants. It doesn't even make sense for him to love me."

There was the Caroline she knew, the insecure girl who was constantly putting herself in competition with the world. She'd grown to know, love, and respect the Caroline who was confident and strong enough to handle herself. She wanted that girl back, because this girl just didn't realize how wonderful she really was.

"That's not true. It does make sense for Stefan to love you. You're bubbly and you're happy. You give him life and you make him feel like he doesn't have to feel guilty. Love doesn't have to be right. It just is. You don't choose who you love or even know why, you just do. You can't explain it or control it, but if you're one of the lucky people who gets it, and I mean really gets it, don't let it scare you off."

Caroline took a deep breath and nodded. She hated to get emotional about things, but she was always on the fence. She never knew if what she felt was right. No one else thought it was.

Just then, the closet door opened and Stefan, Damon, and Alaric all walked through, Damon cradling a petite cake in his hands, all three of them with birthday hats on their heads. The cake was covered in chocolate icing – her favorite – and looked about just to enough for four or five. There were nineteen candles cluttered on the surface and Bonnie instantly felt a sea of deja vu wash over her as the four of them began to sing Happy Birthday to her.

And it felt nice to be okay. The circumstances would take some getting used to, but it felt good to know that everyone was dedicated to making each other happy, that no one life was worth more than another in this group of friends. They loved each other equally. And they were safe. There was no fight to prepare for, no reason to be so paranoid of their surroundings. She got her wish. They were all safe with each other.

"Come on. Blow your candles out, babe." Damon urged.

She did as she was told, taking in a big gust of air and blowing all nineteen flames away. Stefan placed a glittery tiara on her head and they cheered for her, having officially brought in her 19th year. Bonnie felt warm and couldn't fight the smile that crawled across her lips and the small laugh that escaped her mouth. She couldn't remember the last time she saw all of them happy this way.

The Stefan she knew had no humanity. That was the only way he could be happy. The Caroline she knew was miserable, because the guy she loved was sired to the enemy. The Alaric she knew had lost the second woman he loved and everyone kept killing him. And the Damon she knew didn't care for anyone else's life but Elena's, because he loved her, miserably so, and she just couldn't love him back the way he wanted.

But here, Stefan found his happiness in Caroline. She found hers in him. Alaric, though looking for his vampiric wife, found happiness in his friendship with Damon. And Damon found his happiness in Bonnie.

Maybe she should learn to find happiness in this life, too, and let her old life go.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: <strong>_The next chapter will be the end of the birthday chapters and the beginning of the romance, whatever that is. Thanks so much for everyone who has reviewed and favorite and put this story on alert. It means so much to know you guys like the story._

**Disclaimer: Sadly, I don't own TVD. That's the CW and L. J. Smith.**


	4. Scrambling

**Scrambling.**

Damon was annoyed, on the verge of taking a chunk out of the throat of the next person who grabbed one of his priceless vases and tossed it around senselessly like some football or spilled another drop of alcohol on his Persian rug. This was his home, not some frat house where things were meant to be ruined and antiques to be broken. He was doing this all for Bonnie. He had to remind himself constantly. This was for his Bonnie, nothing else.

He growled angrily seeing another drunken idiot pick up a hand-carved statuette of an elephant from South Africa he'd paid thousands for. It was one of a kind. He sped over to the brunette jock, taking the elephant out of his slimy paws and placed a firm hand on the guy's shoulder, staring directly into his gray eyes.

"You're going to party, drink, dance and try to feel up a few girls, but you're not going to touch anything else in this house that doesn't belong to you or else I will snap your neck, got it?"

"Won't touch anything that doesn't belong to me," He droned mindlessly.

"Good boy," Damon said, patting his shoulder. "Now get out of my face. You reek."

As the boy stalked away, Bonnie caught Damon's eye from across the room. She was dancing with Caroline to the music that blasted through the speakers and circulated throughout the home. It was something about moving like Jagger. The lyrics were over Damon's head.

Bonnie was dressed in a strapless, purple dress that ended just above her knees. It was snug around her curves and pushed up her breasts, but she didn't look anything less than classy. Caroline had curled her hair in loose ringlets that fell over her shoulders and forced her feet into black pumps.

Damon couldn't but feel pride, because the most beautiful girl in this room, she was his. He hadn't noticed that he was now staring at her, but Bonnie could feel his eyes on her as if the Salvatore home wasn't crowded with strangers all pulsing together. All she could feel was him. She turned for a moment, catching his eyes, gaining a small smirk from him. Even in a room full of people, he was able to steal her attention for himself. Stefan stood next to him then, following his brother's gaze.

"We certainly got lucky." He said jokingly. "Two human, teenage girls who are still in high school and two over a century old vampires who are forever stuck in seventeen and twenty-four year old bodies; classic, American tale."

"You make it sound so _dirty_, Stefan."

That moment, Caroline looked to Stefan, giving him a small smile. They were still in a fight and she wasn't going to cave in now, but Stefan never had any intentions of letting it carry out any longer than it already had. He smiled back at her, mouthing 'I love you' to her and she blushed, looking away from him.

"All I'm saying is that one day it might dawn on them that we're old enough to have watched their parent's parents grow up. That's more than a little creepy."

"You're the only one of us that had to stalk their girlfriend down just so she'd give him the time of day, baby brother. Remember that."

"You and Bonnie have an epic love story, right?" He asked playfully. "Girl hates boy. Boy hates girl, but find that they have a common interest and set aside their hatred for one another to indulge in said interest, only to fall head over heels for one another. Boy saves girl. Girl gives boy her undying affection as gratitude for said saving."

"Don't forget said boy and girl's **mind-blowing** sex."

"I thought we agreed that wasn't a need-to-know subject."

Stefan then scrunched up his face in distaste at the sudden image, which Damon laughed at. Bonnie was shocked at how comfortable they seemed to be with one another. They laughed and talked as if it was the easiest thing in the world, as if they both weren't fighting for the affection for the same girl. She smiled a bit. Without Elena around, Damon had learned to forgive his brother for what happened to Katherine. They had been able to mend their relationship without anything standing in the way.

Damon and Stefan were brothers again.

"You know, they're totally adorable together." Caroline said, watching them as they laughed together. "They're probably the happiest, most civil brothers I know."

"They do have quite the bromance, huh?" Bonnie mused, giggling.

"That's why we call them Defan when they're together."

Bonnie could help but laugh. This life, it was so much more comfortable than where'd she came from. There was no underlying hostility in every word someone said. There was no need to check over her shoulder every step she took, because here, danger didn't lurk within every dark space. She felt okay to celebrate her birthday and be okay with the fact that she was alive. She wasn't worried that today might be her last day, maybe tomorrow.

She just, for the first time in a year, didn't care about anything.

Matt tapped Bonnie's shoulder. Caroline had made it a point to dodge out of his sight, because she'd seen plenty of Matt/Bonnie interactions and she knew how they all ended – Matt pinned up against the wall by his throat.

"Oh, hey, Matt!" Bonnie said excitedly, stumbling when she turned. _I'm drunk, obviously._

Caroline's eyes went wide when Bonnie threw her arms around Matt's neck, hugging him tight. Even Matt was shocked. He was so used to prodding for her affections and to have her literally throw herself on him, he couldn't say he was going to question it. Bonnie had just a bit too much to drink and was beginning to lose it.

"Bon, it's good to see you, too." Matt said, chuckling. "Happy Birthday,"

"Aw, thank you. You're so sweet, Matt. You've always been so sweet." She giggled. Caroline pulled her away from him, holding her steady, an annoyed look on her face. "Oh, was I too close?"

"Not at all," Matt said.

"Matt – as much as I love you – if Damon sees you here, he's going to kill you." Caroline said softly, trying to keep her voice just a little bit low not to draw his attention.

But they had, immediately.

"Damon's my boyfriend, apparently." Bonnie slurred. "He doesn't like other people looking at me. I'm sorry."

Damon was right behind Caroline and Bonnie in a second, a hard glare already fixated in his eyes. Matt caught his glare, but stood his ground, folding his arms over his chest. It was always like this. Matt would overstep his boundaries, Damon would tell him to step off, Matt would think he had a right to overstep; Damon would nearly kill him and compel him to just forget that part happened.

But at least he got a sick pleasure out of choking him every time.

"How many times do I have to tell you to back off before I actually have to kick your ass, Donovan?" Damon asks casually. Caroline groans, placing a hand over her face.

"You don't own her, Salvatore and you don't have to be a dick about it. I just came to wish her Happy Birthday. She hugged me. So why don't you back off?"

_When did Matt turn into such a badass?_

"In case it's seemed to slip your thick skull, she's mine and it seems like I have to constantly remind you of that. So we'll try this one more time before I crush every bone in your face. Bonnie is mine. Stay away from her."

"Fuck you, man. In case it seemed to slip your thick skull, she's not property. She's old enough to make her own decisions and if she wants me around, I'll be around."

Nobody seemed to hear Bonnie moaning that she was going to be sick except Stefan. Caroline was now standing right in-between the two heated men, trying to keep Damon from tearing Matt apart. Maybe he'd have a chance if Damon wasn't a century old vampire with inhuman strength and speed. The facts were that Matt was human and the time it would take him to draw his arm back to throw a punch, Damon could have snapped his neck before he got the chance.

"Okay, remember it's Bonnie's birthday and she's a little drunk, but that doesn't mean you can ruin her party with this. Let it go. Matt, go somewhere else and Damon, go get some air." Caroline wasn't an excellent mediator.

Stefan had taken Bonnie away before things got messy. Now, her head was deep in the toilet and she was emptying the contents of her stomach. Stefan, like the good friend he was, held her curls back behind her head so that she didn't ruin her hair. Bonnie was clutching at the porcelain seat for dear life as if her organs were coming up as well. She was a total lightweight. Stefan knew that, but Bonnie could usually hold her liquor.

That's because the Bonnie he knew drank enough to train her body to. This Bonnie never had the time to drink between saving everyone else's life and sacrificing her own.

"I wanna go home." Bonnie moaned to no one in particular. "I just wanna get home."

"You are home." Stefan said softly, but she shook her head.

"This is all wrong. This isn't home. I need to get back to Ele-Elena. _You _need to get back to her. I need to stop Klaus." She drunkenly admitted to him. His face scrunched up in confusion.

"Bon, what are you on about?" He asked.

"You!" She sighed, tangling her fingers in her hair. "You weren't supposed to save her, but you fucked it all up. Now we're in a mess, Stefan, but I'm gunna fix it. I swear." She pointed at him. "I am a Bennett witch. It's my job to fix all you vampires fuck ups, apparently."

Stefan just sat quietly, listening to her ramble on. He had no idea what she was talking about, no clue what she meant, but she wouldn't stop. She just kept going.

"I just needed a break." She mumbled. "Does that make me selfish?"

Tears were gathering in her eyes now. He'd seen plenty of Drunk!Bonnie before, but she was never like this. She was never a wreck, never such a mess. It wasn't like her. He'd been getting these weird feelings around Bonnie, like something was wrong with her, like things were off-center. He summed it up to her magic going haywire with her earlier that morning, but he could never know for sure.

"Not at all, Bonnie; everyone needs a break sometimes."

She nods. He's right. She'd earned a break from the never-ending drama. She deserved a birthday she could celebrate without worrying that she was going to be attacked. She deserved a night of drinking. She deserved her cake. She deserved to eat it, too. She deserved to dance. She deserved this party; all of it. She had earned it all.

"But don't worry, Stef." She yawns. "I'm gonna fix it. Everything will be normal again."

"Fix what, Bon?"

But by the time he asks, she answers in an incoherent mumbles. She's snuggled up in the corner of the bathroom just trying to find a semi-comfortable position to crash in. Her dress is too tight to sleep in. Her dress is too short to spread out in. She wants to crawl into her bed and sleep. Stefan can't make out any strings of her profanity, any of her grumbles, any of her frustrations. He just scoops her up in his arms like he's gathering flowers.

_I'll clean the bathroom after._

Damon's waiting at the top of the staircase for him, a face consumed with worry for his witch. It still feels weird to him, to care about someone this much, more than your own self. It feels so foreign to love like this. Damon is desperate for her, desperate for her to love him, too. He's finally the first choice and feels nice and strange. He doesn't have to share her with his brother. She chose him first.

Stefan passes the girl's seemingly lifeless body to Damon. Bonnie grumbles a bit, but settles into his arms comfortably. While Caroline's coming up the stairs to find Stefan, Damon is already on his way to his room to get Bonnie out of that dress and under some blankets, because she's cold. He can feel her shaking a bit. He doesn't know that she's dreaming of him, of his piercing blue eyes. He doesn't know that she's shaking from fear of things she doesn't really know how to remember, things she doesn't know she can remember.

And she's forgetting, digging holes in her mind.

"Is she okay?" Caroline asks, leaning into Stefan.

He holds her close, because he doesn't want to lose her. She likes it when he holds her that way, like he's afraid he could lose her at any moment. It makes her feel appreciated.

"I don't know." He answers honestly.

He doesn't know if Bonnie's okay. He doesn't know if she's losing her mind, but he doesn't think that she was just drunkenly rambling. He doesn't know if her magic has really gone haywire and is slowly pushing her toward insanity. She never mentions Elena, neither does Caroline; sometimes they do to each other, but not to Damon or him. It's just one of those scabs you don't pick at. He tells himself to give Sheila a call, because she blamed him for something.

All the while, Bonnie's memories are scrambled, just a mess of moments she can't think of properly and she's sleeping to sort through them all. She remembers visiting Elena's grave and she remembers rushing to the hospital, because she made it out alive. She just doesn't know what's right or real.

* * *

><p><em>This completes the birthday segment of the story. I don't know why that took four chapters, really. From the next chapter on, the title of the story will really start to come into play. It's going to get a bit messy.<em>

**Also, follow me on tumblr. Let's be friends: slutvatore . tumblr . com**

**Disclaimer: Sadly, I don't own TVD. That's the CW and L. J. Smith, because if I did, Bonnie would be all over these fucking stills and what of it.**


	5. Frame, Focus

**Frame, Focus.**

Bonnie woke up the following morning, pain bouncing back and forth around the barriers of her skull. Her skin felt entirely too heavy to live around her bones, but her head felt airy and nearly non-existent in comparison. She was dizzy and she was nauseous. She took her breaths in moderation, moved in the same way, to fight down the urge to throw up. Beads of sweat were beginning to gather on her forehead and so she slowly pulled every bit of cloth off of her body.

She could remember, vaguely, bits and pieces of last night. The images were there settled comfortably in her mind, but she could only remember them in a dream-like quality that made her question its viability. She racked her mind for the words to fit the scenes and there she found a clutter of memories rushing their way to the front. Her sensitive eyes shot open, immediately attacked by rays of light. Whimpering, she guarded her eyes to black out the pain.

She had one hell of a hangover.

She blinked rapidly, trying to allow little pieces of light in her eyes until she could take it, until they adjusted enough so that she could keep them open. She was in more pain than she could stand. Her memories were in a broken cluster and the images were tossed around. Things were messy and she couldn't remember what had really happened. The only bit of information she knew to be true was that yesterday was her birthday. She had a party. She got really drunk.

Damon's leaning up against the doorway of his bathroom, that signature smirk of smugness drawn on his face as he's watching Bonnie squirm around in frustration.

"You're alive." He says playfully.

And this is where things got very intricate for Bonnie, very puzzling. She didn't understand how to respond to the sound of his voice. A part of her was uninterested and irritated at the underlying sarcasm that was always present, but another part of her, a part that was getting sturdier, was fighting the impulse to simply smile and melt. His voice was smooth and velvety, but it was also raw, rough, and masculine. He was naturally seductive in tone.

Bonnie responded, but her voice was small. "Barely,"

"Caroline is already on cure Bonnie's hangover duty, no worries."

In a single breath, Damon was kneeling next to the bed, his ocean blue eyes pouring into hers. Bonnie, blushing, forced her own eyes away. It wasn't so strange to feel uncomfortable under his gaze, but what was, was that she felt so _insecure _and uncertain of herself. In that moment, a part of her didn't feel as though she was worth the obvious affection swimming in those baby blues. She didn't know why. She just wasn't.

Damon caressed her cheek, just a tiny touch, feather-light that triggered something in Bonnie's brain. Her green eyes were wide and they were rapidly growing distant.

* * *

><p><em>Bonnie was glued against the wall, bitterness consuming her form. The time she had spent on her appearance for this dance, for him, was immeasurable. When he asked her if he could attend the winter formal with her, she had been a little bubble of shock and anticipation. Things between her and Damon, they were casual. She knew what she was to him and that he didn't want to make a big deal of their relationship.<em>

_He wanted the two of them to be Damon and Bonnie. He wanted them to remain the individuals that they were. The idea of the two of them overlapping and becoming something more than themselves, it terrified him, but she thought that he was changing, that he was warming up to the idea of an 'us' and not just a 'you and me'._

_Bonnie looked beautiful and full of spite, from what Damon could see, but he found all her spite just as equally as beautiful. He stood at the entrance of the school's gymnasium for a moment just admiring her. Bonnie had a subtle beauty, the kind you just didn't see in a girl anymore. It was obvious beauty, but it didn't make a big deal of itself. She looked so innocent with her tiny frame and her big, green eyes._

_She was dressed in a simple, silver gown that hugged her curves and fell to her feet. Her hair was in loose, ringlet curls and she'd even had light touches of make-up around her eyes. She looked like a goddess, his goddess, and she was waiting for him to bow at her feet. Damon smirked as he approached her._

"_Excuse me," He began. "I'm looking for my date. She's about 5'6 in height. She's got a tight, little body and the softest green eyes that can make any man, dead or undead, melt. Do you think you could point me in her direction?"_

_Bonnie tried her damnedest to remain stoic and impassive. She refused to meet his eyes that were searching to stare into hers, because one look into those pools of blue and all the tension, the frustration, it would just melt away under his gaze. Damon tried to catch her line of vision, maneuvered in front of her, but she kept dodging him. She didn't want to look at him, but he wanted to look at her._

_When would the witch learn that he always got his way?_

_In that moment, Damon gently cupped her face into his hands, forcing her eyes to him. His thumbs were stroking softly against her cheeks. He handled her with the utmost care. Though he knew that Bonnie was one of the strongest women he would ever know, he always felt as though he might break her. When he looked at her now, the sadness gathering in her eyes as she stared at him in absolute silence, he found just how emotionally fragile she was when it came to him._

"_You're late." She said. "The dance is almost over. There's one song left."_

"_Then I suppose that dance is mine to have." He responds easily._

_Bonnie put her hands over his, pulling them away from her face. He was strong enough to resist, but Damon had vowed he would never touch her when she didn't want him to. He had put his forceful hands on her unwilling body enough in the past to know to just let her go when she asked it of him._

"_It doesn't work like that, Damon. When you said you would meet me here, I had no idea that meant you were going to hold out until it was nearly over or else I would have taken Matt up on his offer to take me."_

_His jaw ticked. She always brought up Matt, because she knew she had to break down his reserves to get a point across, to make him grasp the heat of the situation. A part of him loved it. She was the only one who wasn't afraid to hurt him to make him understand that he was in the wrong, but a part of him resented her. She took the one thing she knew he was a bit insecure over and threw it in his face. Every time._

"_Some things came up, Bonnie. I would have been here sooner, but Stefan is off the handle right now. He's not here and I was doing damage control with Caroline before she got hurt. I'm sorry that I'm late, more than late, but I need you to understand that when it comes to you and Stefan, I'll always choose Stefan. He's my brother."_

_Without question, she understood. She had no other choice but to. That was the way the two of them functioned. They put each other in their place. They balanced each other out. They never let the other get ahead of themselves. When Bonnie pushed too hard, Damon pushed her back. When Damon pulled too hard, Bonnie pulled him back. She nodded resolutely. That settled that._

_Damon took her hand, leading her out to the center of the floor to take their dance. He felt bad for missing the majority of the night, yes, but he would miss it all if it meant he had to help his brother. He and Stefan weren't perfect. They would never be able to be the way they were before Katherine, but it didn't make them any less of family. It didn't make Stefan any less of Damon's little brother._

"_Next time, just call me. I could have helped you. Is he okay?"_

_Bonnie's arms snaked around his neck and Damon placed his hands gently on her hips and the two of them began to sway to the soft and subtle tune of the song that had begun playing._

"_He's fine, just a little human blood. I have to teach him to take things in moderation, but I'm here with you now and I don't want to talk about Stefan."_

_**I've been wishing on a star and I could never have imagined that I'd land just where you are after all this lonesome travelling. I took one look in your eyes and reached out to hold your hand. This is when I realized what I could never understand. Do you want to be my one and only love?**_

_The two of them were silent as they stared into the other's eyes. Bonnie was entranced by him, but Damon was letting the words that were circulating the room sink into him. Right now, all he could see was her. He was living in the midst of the biggest, romantic cliché to ever exist. The world around him was a blur, but Bonnie was the frame and the focus. She made everything clear. She made everything easier. She made his anchor of a heart a little lighter._

_She made existing bearable. She gave it rhyme. She gave it reason. In the abyss of nothingness that he had once settled in, she was everything. She shed light on everything that he was, everything he used to be._

_They were both thinking it, but Damon said it. "So this is what it's like to not be able to live without someone."_

_**So you want to be my friend, so you want to be my lover. Oh, with you I do confess, I can't be one without the other. That was hard for me to say. I hope I said it right. Whichever, come what may, see I need to know tonight. Do you want to be my one and only love?**_

_This was foreign territory for Bonnie. She had never loved anyone romantically. She had never needed anyone the way she did him. She had never been the kind of girl to cling. She was independent. She was able to stand on her own, but with Damon, it was different. It was easier. She knew she could be on her own, but she just didn't want to anymore. She wanted him to stay by her side. She didn't want to Bonnie without Damon._

"_I guess so." She replied._

_**Do you want to play these cards? Do you want to lay them down? Do you want to run away or do you want to stick around? Do you want to be my one and only love?**_

_So it was December 17, 2010; only three months into their Bonnie and Damon when they decided that they wouldn't be without the other. It was an unspoken promise, only insinuated, but never verbally stated. That was the best part about the two of them. Not everything needed to be said. They just got each other. They just knew._

_Damon thought the way he loved Katherine was love, but no, it was clear to him that it was obsession. Katherine was no more than a competition between him and Stefan. With Bonnie, it was__ raw, reckless, unexplainable passion. It rooted in the very depths of his own being, through the crevices and right under those ancient walls he had once thought were so carefully built. Love for Bonnie was more than a transitory emotion._

_He'd gone from having it to existing within it._

_It was contemptible and wild, constructing and vulnerable, unsightly and rancid. It was vile, almost and it pushed his heart out at sea, forced him to feel the current and smell the unrefined nature under his nose; salt and heartache. It just made him sick to the stomach. But it was love. _

_Bonnie supposed that it didn't matter how painful the ache in her chest had become so long as it ached with formation and no more a pathetic longing for the sensation of his skin or a lack of distance. This love almost felt like suffocation, but that was okay, because they would teach each other how to breathe again._

* * *

><p>Bonnie blinked until her vision was clear and her mind was back into its present state. Damon was staring at her, one brow lifted in confusion.<p>

"You okay? You kind of blanked there, babe."

She looked around, taking a heavy breath. "I'm okay."

A low rumbling stirred in her stomach and Damon chuckled, taking her hand to help her up and out of bed. She was still fighting off her dizziness, which caused her to stumble, but Damon caught her easily. The throbbing in her head had yet to subside, either, but Bonnie figured she should knock out only so many things at a time. Damon bit into his wrist, offering it out to Bonnie.

"It'll take the headache and dizziness away, but don't tell Caroline. You know how she is, loves to play nurse and mend you the human way; with food."

Nodding, she took his wrist into her mouth, sucking on the wound until she was gulping down his blood. For a human, the effects of vampire blood were simple. They healed you immediately and they gave you a jolt of energy. Usually, it put a pep in your step if you weren't in a stressful or chaotic situation. It temporarily heightened your emotions. It put your body's system into overdrive, pushing it harder than it could go, but the blood kept you durable and safe until it had ran its course.

"I'll leave you to take your shower. Hurry down. Stefan and Caroline are getting ready to make breakfast." He said. "And brush your teeth. Your breath smells like day old alcohol and morning breath. Let me tell you, not a nice smell."

Bonnie wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "Fuck you. Get out."

* * *

><p>When Bonnie descended the stairs, she realized just how loud the music was. She'd heard it from the shower, but it was dulled by the sound of the water. Now, she nearly had to cover her ears as Chris Brown's 'Yeah 3x' filled the entirety of the house. And now, she could hear Caroline and <em>Stefan <em>singing loudly along. Bonnie pulled her damp hair into a high, messy ponytail as she made her way into the kitchen.

What she found there was a little more than unusual.

"_Girl, don't feel out of place, because I, I'm in love with this feeling now and I, I-I-I hope that this will last a while. We should make this last a while._" Stefan sang as he twirled Caroline around the island.

Caroline was dressed in a red, white, and black plaid shirt with denim Bermuda shorts on. He hair, as usual was curled to perfection. Stefan, dressed a plain t-shirt and faded jeans, had a towel thrown over his shoulder and there was the scent of pancakes consuming the air. Damon stood in the corner, bobbing his head from side-to-side as he cracked eggs into a pan and they sizzled at the contact of heat.

Caroline danced over to Bonnie, grabbed her hands, and pulled her into the commotion of the kitchen as she sang to her. "_You love to drink? So do we! Get my bottles. Bring 'em to me! Hold your glasses up, people everywhere. Now everybody put your hands in the air. Say yeah, yeah, yeah!_"

Bonnie wondered, between her laughing and dancing with Caroline, if this is what it was like every morning. All of them had not a care in the world, but she knew that. They were a family, even with Alaric still, but it wasn't an ordinary family. This was the kind of family that was up at 8am, making breakfast and dancing to Chris Brown in their kitchen. This was the kind of family that could make even a stranger, which technically Bonnie was, feel as though they were right at home.

* * *

><p>Caroline and Bonnie stalked down the halls mindlessly between second to third period. Caroline was droning mindlessly about cheerleading practices being extended until five, because the two of them had been slacking to spend time with the Salvatore brothers. Though Bonnie was both shocked and happy to learn that in this life, she was still a cheerleader, she was more concerned about what had happened this morning with Damon.<p>

The minute he came into contact with her skin, a cluster of memories came rushing to the forefront of her mind. Normally, she would sum those up to premonitions, but this didn't feel like something that was on its way. It felt like it was something that had already happened. It felt like she was _remembering_. Premonitions usually felt foreign and ominous, but this felt familiar and warm. It felt relieving.

"Hey, Caroline," She called, stopping her rambling. "Do you remember last winter formal?"

She groaned. "Do I? God, I was so worried for Stefan. He had that relapse, you remember? I didn't even get to go, but I don't care. I just wanted to be there for him."

"Yeah, I remember. Damon showed up on the last song."

"But the song you guys danced to, isn't that like your song now? What's it called? I know it's by Teitur, but I forget the name all the time."

"One And Only," Bonnie answered for her.

"Yeah, that's it! It's such a cute song."

The horror of it all wasn't that Bonnie actually knew the answer to her question. The horror of it was that she knew the answer without the memory, without even thinking about it. She just knew as if it were just a bit of information lingering in her mind; like left and right, red and blue. It was just common knowledge for her. The horror of it was that she knew now that what happened with Damon this morning was a memory and his touch had triggered it.

But the real horror, the one that outweighed the rest, was that now that he'd triggered the memory, she could no longer remember what had originally happened to her that night. It had taken its place.

* * *

><p><em>I wonder how many of you actually caught my Lights reference. The song used in the flashback is 'One And Only' by Teitur. It's a cute song. You should listen to it. The one in the kitchen scene is 'Yeah 3x' by Chris Brown. This took longer than I expected it to. I'm sorry about that. I've been mapping out ideas for new stories. I'm kind of consumed by ideas right now, haha.<em>

_And holy hell, thanks so much to everyone who reviews on this story. I love you and I wish I could respond to everyone, but that would take too long. Also, to everyone's who has this story on alert and favorite. Seriously, it means so much._

_Follow me on tumblr. Let's be mates: slutvatore . tumblr . com_

**Disclaimer: Sadly, I don't own TVD. That's the CW and L. J. Smith.**


	6. Morality

_I know I suck for taking bloody forever to update. Just know this has been progressively written since the last update and when I actually got 90% of the chapter done, my computer went wonky and deleted half of it and so I spent a week too frustrated to rewrite, but here it is. I don't really like it, but yeah._

* * *

><p><strong>Morality.<strong>

"You're avoiding Stefan and Damon." Caroline stated.

Bonnie and Caroline were seated directly across from each other at one of the many wooden tables right outside their school for lunch, as they had been every day. Caroline bit off the tip of a baby carrot, her accusing, blue eyes boring into Bonnies guilty green ones. Sighing, Bonnie ran her fingers through the front of her hair.

It was the truth. For the last two weeks, Bonnie's been avoiding the Salvatores at any and all cost. It wasn't so much Stefan and she that Bonnie was attempting to force a fair amount distance between, but Stefan was an extension to Damon and wherever it was the younger Salvatore went, the elder would probably follow. It was a safety precaution for the remains of her original memories. It was self-preservation.

"I'm not avoiding them." She lied, poking at the salad in front of her. "I just need space, time to myself, you know? I spend the majority of my time with all of you."

As long as she didn't make eye contact, the lies came as easily as breathing.

Caroline rolled her eyes. "Damon's been asking about you. I figured you were getting sick of him, so I've been holding him off as long as I could, but I think he's getting too antsy now."

_Damon advanced toward Stefan with crumpled eyebrows. Caroline was present, pillaging and plundering through their kitchen to sate her human cravings for food and fluids, but Bonnie was nowhere to be found. It was unlike her not to trail in behind Caroline on a mission to the kitchen before even bothering to greet him or his brother. It was unlike her not to call if something had come up, for Damon to feel so unaware of her._

_Stefan's leaning insouciantly against the island in the center, simply observing Caroline. He's utterly enthralled by the way he sees her every day, but she's never the same yet she also never changes._

"_Where's Bonnie?" Damon inquires anxiously._

_Caroline grins cheekily at the strength in his concern. "Cheer practice majorly wore her out. She said she was going to head back to hers and crash."_

_While Damon nodded, feigning an expression of pure understanding, Stefan's face scrunched in raw confusion. The elder Salvatore never wanted to seem too clingy over overly-interested and he could always rely on Stefan to say exactly what he was thinking when it came to Bonnie being out of character._

"_Since when does she go all the way to Sheila's to crash? It's faster to get here from school." Stefan probed. "Did anything happen at school, Care?"_

_Since the morning of her birthday, Stefan had been a little more than curious of Bonnie's behavior. He couldn't grasp onto her excuse. It slipped him time and time again. The more he endeavored to fathom and accept her explanations, the less he truly could find feasibility in them._

_To put simply, he had reason to believe that she was lying._

_Caroline's eyes dashed away at his interrogation. She shrugged dispassionately, trying to play it off and hopefully shift this chat into an entirely different direction; far away from the subject of Bonnie._

_Stefan snorted in abrupt frustration with his girlfriend. "There's your tell, Caroline. You're keeping things from me again when I'm blatantly asking about them."_

"_Okay, fine!" She tossed her hands up, defeated. "Matt came to talk to her after practice and asked her if she recalled any of last night at the party and when she said no, he went into detail. He even mentioned the part she didn't witness, the part where Damon pushed him over a table."_

_Damon's jaw clenched. "Did Bonnie say anything about it?"_

"_No, she just apologized to him for it getting out of hand and said she would deal with you herself." She swore. "But she'd said she was crashing at her Grams' way before this."_

_With one, curt nod, Damon turned on his heels and exited the kitchen. He debated quickly what his next course of action should be. One hand he found was curled over his car keys in an instant, the other clutching his phone in hand. He found it quite strange the way his anger seemed to take over him, the way his logic seemed to go dormant in mind while all of the mindless impulses took over his actions._

_Sometimes, he didn't like the affect Bonnie had over his demeanor._

"Stefan's not buying any of my excuses anymore and I'm pretty sure Damon isn't either." With that, Caroline closes the plastic box her salad came in and stood from the table, giving Bonnie a sympathetic look. It wasn't easy to see her best friend so troubled. She sighs. "Whatever it is, Bonnie, Damon will understand. He loves you. Just tell him the truth instead of avoiding him. I promise you, it'll be okay."

* * *

><p>Bonnie's desires clashed with her morals, as per usual. It wasn't so much that they conflicted that kept her pacing around her bedroom in her Grams' home. No, it was that she was so amended with her principles rivaling over what she wanted and overshadowing them. Now, she just wanted to set all of the self-righteousness to the side and simply be for a while. It wasn't always easy to do the right thing for a witch, contrary to popular belief.<p>

Witches were nothing more than servants. They carried out orders. They came with a standard set of rules and regulations along with their magic, but they were still human. They had nerves, hearts with their beats, skin, bones and raw emotions. They were still made out of all of those flimsy and frail things that most humans were created from. Most importantly, the one thing that seemed to constantly go ignored, they had humanity; enough of it to fill themselves and possibly an entire community. Witches were so human, but not very human at all, which made them surpass the standard of "human".

No one understood that with a gift came obligation and responsibility. No one understood that while they were strong in a sense, they were just as destructible as anyone else. They were just as fragile. They breathed the same air and their bodies all functioned quite the same. They bled. It took time to heal. They felt. They felt so much, a number of things all at once. They were uncertain. They didn't always know. They were **people**.

Their magic was an addition to their person, but it was not _them_.

Sometimes, it was hard to identify right from wrong or to spot the shades of grey in a world convinced it is either black or white. Sometimes, it was hard to say, with complete confidence, if you were making the right choice. The thing about the witches that set them apart from the rest was that humans were afraid to make a mistake, but witches were fearless and knew that even the right choices harbored unbearable consequences.

But sometimes, even a witch made the wrong choice and Bonnie was consciously aware that this was wrong, but the right choice made her too anxious. It made her shake and drone in wheezy strings of incoherent thought.

She had tried to dig into herself, into the very depths of her being, and exhume some of that old witch's courage she kept hearing so much about. She wanted to tell the truth, the whole truth right down to the very last breathy croak of it, but she just couldn't find it in herself. All she could gather was an aching bubble of eagerness in her fear. In her past life, it would not have disturbed her to know that she'd hurt him, but here, Damon was so vulnerable.

He'd completely opened himself to her, trusted her. She looked him in the eyes and lied and no matter how suspicious she had been, he bought it without question. His Bonnie would never lie to him, he knew. She had no reason to. The problem now was that she had to avoid physical contact with him at all costs, but he seemed to linger wherever she went. It didn't seem to matter where she was. He would never be too far behind.

The only safe was Grams' house. Stefan, as she'd informed Bonnie, was the only vampire she ever had or would invite into her home. And while Bonnie thought it should make her feel affronted for Damon's sake, she understood why. Damon, no matter the reality he existed in, was rash and acted through his emotional state. Ration and reason was lost to Damon's nature, but they both knew that Stefan would never harm either of them.

What Bonnie didn't know is that while she could never do anything so horrific to him that it would goad him into harming her, she also could not lie to him.

Sighing, Damon let his keys drop to their respective surface, calmly dialing her number into his keypad. He knew that she would want to be alone if she wanted to be alone. Sometimes, there was no rhyme or reason to why she needed distance. He had to remind himself constantly that just because she was his girlfriend did not make her his. She was a person, not a possession. She didn't belong to him. Often times, he wasn't sure if she even belonged to herself.

"Damon," She breathed.

She could have easily told him the truth then, but she simply chose not to. Here, there was no constant beckon for a group of teenagers, a history teacher/vampire hunter, and three vampires to act as heroes over the fuss of one girl. Here, they were just a group of friends experiencing all they could together, making mistakes, and falling right on their knees. It had yet to seem as though any of them were afraid to bleed, afraid that they may not heal.

She couldn't remember the last time things were easy for her, for anyone.

"Bon," He returned. "Hiding, are we?"

Bonnie chuckles despite herself. "I'm not hiding, Damon, I just needed some time to spend with myself and my Grams. I'm sorry if you think that I'm hiding from you."

Her voice is gentle, but Damon notices the underlying plead. He hasn't seen her in two weeks. She hasn't picked up his calls and she hasn't answered the door when he'd come to her Grams' home. She completely shut him out at random with no explanation, no warning.

"So this has nothing to do with you being mad at me for shoving bus boy over a table? It was an antique, mind you. I don't just push anyone over those."

"First of all, _you're_ an antique. I should be more concerned about you spontaneously bursting into a pile of ashes from age than you breaking a wooden table." Bonnie quipped. "Second of all, I don't care if it was an antique. Matt's human and you shouldn't have done it in the first place."

"I can't hear you over all of that self-righteousness." Damon retorts.

Bonnie snorts then. "Maybe if you weren't such an asshole and completely absorbed in yourself alone, you'd probably be able to pull your head out of your ass long enough to hear me better."

This is what Bonnie was used to. This is the Bonnie and Damon she knew, the back and forth, the fight, him telling her that she was being too self-righteous and giving him "judgey eyes" when she was the only one who told him his disregard for human life was wrong. Damon was used to this as well, the playful banter. It was what he loved most about their relationship. In between kisses and friction, they threw around insults and never took themselves too seriously.

For them, it was considered phrases of endearment, almost as sweet as a kiss.

This time Damon snorts. "Well, maybe if you weren't so damn judgmental, I'd be more inclined to listen. And maybe if the human would actually listen to me every time I civilly tell him to back off, I wouldn't need to push him over any of my priceless, antique tables just to make a point. Check and mate, baby doll. Have fun with your Grams."

And with that, before she could get even another breath in, he ended the call.

Sighing, Bonnie tosses her phone over to her bed, looking toward her Grams who was currently leaning against the frame of her door with an amused smirk set on her lips. Bonnie narrows her eyes, wiggling a finger toward her.

"Don't even, Grams." She warns.

Sheila holds her hands up in surrender. "I wasn't going to comment, only came to tell you that there's yet another Salvatore downstairs looking to speak with you."

Bonnie had been simply trying to get a grip on herself due to the fact that as it seemed, there was no spell that explained or helped her current predicament. This magic was either extremely old magic and Sheila's grimoires just didn't date back that far or it was a type a magic too advanced for any witch to make note of.

So, yes, Bonnie Bennett was stuck here until further notice.

She followed her Grams out of her room then, padding down the stairs to see Stefan standing there with his hands shoved into the pocket of his denim jeans. As always, he was dressed in a dark shirt that clung to his muscles and his hair was as up as ever. He smiled subtly at Bonnie.

"I almost forgot what you looked like. I haven't seen you in so long." He jokes.

Bonnie stood in the middle of the staircase, leaning against the wooden rail, debating whether or not she should go down any closer to him or keep distance.

"You haven't gotten any funnier since the last time I saw you, I see."

"And you've gotten more spiteful. What's up with you, Bon? You've been avoiding me and my brother since the day after your birthday party. Did we do something to upset you?"

"No, Stefan, it isn't you or Damon. I'm not upset."

"Then what are you?" He asks her, frustrated with how standoffish she's being. "No, actually, **who** are you? Because I've been trying to piece this all together, Bonnie. I've been trying to understand what's up with you. You aren't acting like yourself, so I thought maybe it's because you're not yourself. You're not Bonnie. You can't be. Bonnie would never be this way, so who are you?"

"Wha-" She was cut off by her stumbling on the next step, but Stefan was there immediately to catch her before she went toppling down the rest of the way, despite his frustration.

And she zoned out instantly, triggered by his grasp.

* * *

><p><em>Her heart was pounding in her chest and tears were gathering in her eyes. She was trembling in the corner of the bathroom that she was locked in. She'd been here for days, maybe. She didn't know. She'd only just woken up with a bite mark on her neck, blood dried and caching against the wound. It ached and often times she would lightly press her fingers against the wound to test the extent of pain she was really in.<em>

_Wincing, she'd move her hands away, instantly on the verge of tears from the stinging jolt of pain that shot all through her body at the touch. Anna had taken her, roughed her up, and tossed her to the side. She'd been deprived of comfort, food, drinks, social activity. Anna wanted her to slowly rot away in the little space she'd been allotted. Bonnie was losing energy, consciousness. She felt as though she was on the cusps of death._

_Her head was heavy and swayed. Her vision was blurry. Her mouth was dry. Her breaths were shallow. Her entire body was in burning pain. Her heartbeat was slow and soft._

"_Bonnie?" Damon's voice called._

_She scrambled to sit up straight. "Damon?" She breathed hopefully, her voice hoarse and reaching just barely above a tiny whisper. "Damon, is that you?"_

_He didn't answer. Instead, he kicked the door in and went shattering into multiple pieces as it broke away from its hinges. Bonnie pulled her knees up and scooted farther into the corner to avoid being hit by the debris. Damon looked at Bonnie, a painful look consuming his faded blue eyes. There was a bite mark wound in her neck beginning to scab over, but Damon could still smell traces of fresh blood leaving it._

_Her eyes were hardly open and there were dark rings under her eyes. Her lips were parted and he could hear her sucking in painful, broken breaths._

"_Where else are you hurt?" He asked._

_With a sniffle and shaking hands, she lifted the fabric of her shirt just over her stomach to reveal the darkening bruise stretching across her abdomen "She-she threw me against the counter."_

"_Don't talk." He said. "Drink my blood."_

_He bit into his wrist, placing the broken skin gently against her pale lips. Damon knew that the blood wouldn't heal the mark, but it would close it to prevent her from losing any more of her blood. It would give her back some of the color that she lost, a bit of her life. The blood was barely touching her tongue. She was too weak to latch onto the wound._

"_Bonnie, come on. Just drink a little. I know you got it in you." The bite in his arm had healed by then and he growled, frustrated with himself._

"_Damon," Stefan said. "She's not here."_

_Ignoring Anna's whereabouts, he looked up worriedly at his brother. "I need something to pour my blood into for Bonnie to drink."_

_Stefan stepped into the bathroom further to take in the sight of Bonnie. She was curled up in the corner between the bathtub and the toilet with her vacant eyes and nearly lifeless body. It was hard to see her that way. He had become a bit accustomed to seeing her be strong. This was just unusual to him._

"_Stefan, find me something!" Damon demanded. _

_In a blink, Stefan had rushed out of the bathroom. He had suspected that his brother's feelings towards Bonnie had begun to surpass something other than just a mutual understanding. He could have guessed that he would start to feel more than he intended. He spent every, waking moment with her._

_Damon, being impatient and impulsive, couldn't wait for Stefan anymore. He gently pulled the witch to him, handling her with the utmost care. He held her with one arm around her lower back and reaching around her entire waist. Her head lolled back against his bicep. He bit into his hand this time, squeezing blood out of the wound and holding it right over her faintly open mouth._

"_You just need a little more." He murmured._

_When he thought that she'd had enough, he gently pulled her head forward, urging her to swallow and she did in one, hard gulp. The sweet, thick liquid went down her throat easily, working instantly and almost as passionate as Damon was about getting some life back into this girl. Damon helped her to her feet, though it was still hard to stand without the support of someone else, without dizziness engulfing her._

_That was when Stefan came barreling into the bathroom, Anna trotting in after him._

"_I didn't think you'd find us so soon." She said, pouting. "I wanted to slowly break her down and when I thought she'd had enough, I would have killed her quickly."_

_Something in Damon's eyes broke then, his anger and impulse taking over. He let go of Bonnie in an instant and she toppled over into Stefan's arms._

"_Don't worry. I got you." Stefan murmured._

_Bonnie's strength were building up. Her energy was being hammered back into her being. She became more aware of where she was, what happened, more responsive to it. Damon didn't waste time fighting Anna. He wanted her dead. He approached her and she easily pushed him off of her. Stefan set Bonnie down gently next to him._

"_Don't move." He mouthed and she nodded._

_Stefan approached Anna from behind with enough intention to distract her from beating his brother to a bloody pulp, just enough to make her turn around. And when she did, she grabbed Stefan by the neck, amused by how easy it was to fight him off, but Damon approached her quickly, shoving his hand through her back and taking hold of her heart. He squeezed just a little, which made her grasp._

"_Tell your mom I said hey in hell." He said before yanking it right out of through her back._

_Bonnie's eyes were wide in shock as she watched Damon's actions. She had seen him do many things, kill people, hurt them, bite them, choke them, but she had never seen a live heart pulled out of someone's chest and tossed to the ground with absolutely no regard._

_But he did it to save her and in a sick, twisted way, she appreciated it._

* * *

><p>"No," Bonnie breathed as she became aware of herself again. She looked up at Stefan, who held her up by her waist, before she pushed him away from her. "No, not again!"<p>

"Bonnie, what's wrong?" Stefan asked, approaching her. "What is it?"

"Don't!" Bonnie yelled. "Don't come near me. Don't touch me."

Stefan's eyes were wild and concerned as he watched the girl before him cower just like she had that night he and Damon saved her from Anna. She was terrified and tears were clouding her vision. Sheila looked just as worried as Stefan, if not more. She took a heavy breath before she spoke.

"Bonnie, I think it's time you told him." Her Grams suggested. "He's already got the gist of it."

Stefan looked between the two witches. "So I was right? She's not Bonnie."

Bonnie sighed, combing her hair back with her fingers with one hand, the other at her mouth, biting her own nails. She'd been so paranoid about Damon finding out, about what he might do to her if he knew she wasn't the girl that he loved that she never considered Stefan's over-awareness of everyone around him.

"I am Bonnie." She said finally. "I'm just not _your_ Bonnie."

* * *

><p><em>I'm not pleased with how I wrote this. At all. I hate it, but I needed to update. Actually, I think it's the worst chapter of them all. I'm entitled to a shitty chapter, right? The next will be better and less messy. I swear. I know the general Bamon romance is a bit slow right now, only occurring in flashbacks, but there's a pivotal point that I'm trying to build to. Bear with me, please. Reviews for this chapter would be <em>_**extremely**__ appreciated._

**Disclaimer: Sadly, I don't own TVD. That's the CW and L. J. Smith, because if I did, Bonnie would be all over these fucking stills and what of it.**


	7. Swallowed

**Swallowed.**

Bonnie looked down at her shaking hands as the words left her lips. Fear and anxiety filled the whole of her body then as she fought off the urge to watch the way Stefan reacted to her truths. Terrified that his initial response would be to run off and tell both Caroline and Damon, to smash the perfect world full of love and comfort she had presented before her by the spirits to smithereens, she shook incessantly, but Stefan could only stare at her in shock and utter disbelief. His mouth opened slightly and closed in one, swift breath.

He didn't know what to say, what to ask, if he should even ask, if he should just leave and tell his brother and girlfriend why she had been acting the way she was, if she was a threat to them now or an enemy or someone they could still trust. All these thoughts, these unsettling accusations of what this Bonnie was – who this Bonnie was – scattered and scampered around is brain in a dizzy blur he could only faintly keep up with.

"Then," He began suddenly, unable to find the right words. "If you're not our Bonnie, then who are you?"

That was a question she wasn't certain how to answer, certain she could actually even answer.

"I'm just…Bonnie, Stefan." She said after a moment of pressured silence. "I'm just Bonnie Bennett, a brand new witch who tries and tries her damnedest to fix everyone else's mistakes and clean up everyone else's messes and I finally cut myself a break and I'm hiding from it."

"I'm not really understanding you." Stefan admitted quietly, keeping his voice soft to avoid startling the unraveling girl before him. "How is that possible? How can you not be our Bonnie? You look just like her, speak like her. You _are_ her."

"I come from an alternate reality, I think. I'm not really sure. I don't know if this life is a dream or if that life was just a seemingly never-ending nightmare that I finally got to wake up from, but all I know is that everything here is something I'm not entirely familiar with and maybe in time when I understand exactly what's happening better, I can explain it better." Bonnie took a deep breath, finally looking up at Stefan's confused face. "You see, where I woke up from, Elena is still alive and you were in love with her and so was Damon.

"Caroline was settling into her transition from human to vampire. You were forced to shut your humanity off by one of the first vampires and werewolf hybrids to ever exist and I was being used up for my magic and tossed around like a worthless ragdoll by _all_ of you, especially Damon. Where I come from, I hate Damon with every nerve in my body and it's hard to look at him and see him staring at me dotingly. It's hard to watch you love Caroline, because that's not what I'm used to.

"It's hard being happy, because I've been paranoid and miserable and slowly withering away for the last few months in an endless cycle of repetitive deaths and magical fixes. Here, I get to party like a normal teenager. Every time I see you or Damon, it's not because you need me to bring someone back to life or to help you capture and kill someone playing a game to save Elena's life that we just can't win, because the war never stops. Here, I'm not forcibly battle-ready. I'm not used to being calm and flat on my feet instead of on my toes.

"And the night of my birthday, Caroline and Elena made me a cupcake and had me make a wish and I wished that the circumstances could be different, that my life didn't have to revolve around saving hers, that none of us had to risk dying on a daily basis just so that we could say that she dodged another bullet and the spirits gave me that, because when Elena died, you saved her and you weren't meant to and I'm slowly coming to terms with that fact that my best friend is not meant to be alive and I just need a minute to be okay with it and move on."

Bonnie let out a breath she wasn't aware she had been holding in the back of her throat while she rambled on and on trying to explain the best she could. Stefan's eyes left her face and looked at the floor. His eyebrows slowly knitted together as he tried to make sense of her words. Bonnie felt anxious to know what he'd say, the silence leaving her on the cusps of the unknown, but internally, she felt so relieved to get that little tangent off of her chest. Lying was eating away and holing her up in her Grams' house.

She just couldn't keep doing it, but she didn't know how to say the truth.

Bonnie was glad that it was Stefan that found out first, though, because Stefan – in this reality and the other – has always been the type to understand and not judge you for your wrongs, because he has dirtier demons than she ever could.

"So," Stefan started. "What are you going to do? What happened to our Bonnie? Is this permanent? Are you our Bonnie now? Is our Bonnie where you're supposed to be, dealing with all those things and feeling the way you felt? Are you ever going to go back? No, better question. How are you going to tell Damon? Are you even planning on telling him?"

Bonnie sighed so heavy, it chilled her bones. "I don't know."

And it was the truth. Like many things that had come about in her past, she didn't know how she was going to take them on, but she knew that leaving them stranded and wading out in the waters near an uncharted island of infinite unknowns forever was not a possibility, but a new problem arose in telling Damon the truth and it was the issue of her memories being swapped for this Bonnie's memories, as if who she was, was being overridden by who she's supposed to be now.

"You should just tell him the truth. He's Damon, but you're also Bonnie and he'll try to understand for that reason alone."

Bonnie shook her head. "It's not that simple anymore, Stefan. Maybe the first day I could have and I could have gone about this a different way, but I didn't. I stayed and tried to go along with the life that was paved for me here and now I'm paying for it. It's not just the fact that I'm not your Bonnie that keeps me from telling him. It's the fact that I think that I'm beginning to remember the way this Bonnie felt about him and how those feelings came to be. It's bits and pieces now, Stefan, little memories triggered by similar actions.

"But once I remember them, whatever happened to me then in my reality, I can't remember anymore. This place is threading together in my mind the way she remembers it and I'm slowly beginning to forget everything I knew about my old life and if I'm just going to turn into your Bonnie, slowly but surely, a year from now I won't be leaving and wishing myself back home. I'll be here and I won't ever give that place a second thought and I don't know if I see a point in telling the truth when lying will become the truth soon enough anyway."

Stefan sighs, because it's still strange to him, but he's starting to see it from Bonnie's point of view. Telling Damon now will open an entire can of worms that – if what Bonnie is saying is true and she won't remember her old reality over time – is pointless to bother popping open. Stefan rivals with his morals, his incessant need to do the right thing to make up for all the wrongs he's done in the past and the practical thing, the thing that will cause them all less trouble and no unnecessary stress.

A part of him tells him that it doesn't matter, that he and his brother have come too far and he shouldn't keep Damon in the dark in fear of him finding out later and everything falling apart in the end.

But another part of him begs him to take Bonnie under his wing and guide her, teach her how to be the Bonnie he knows, help her until all of the memories consume her and she's who they know again.

"Do you even want to stay here?" He asks.

That was the one thing no one had yet to ask her, what she wanted for herself. Did she want to stay here where the seas were calm and it was always smooth sailing or did she want to go through the trouble of returning to where she literally existed within the chaos of death and destruction with absolutely no way to escape?

Did she want to stay here where she was loved and appreciated for more than her ability to use magic or did she want to be where the only reason she seemed to see her friends on a daily basis was because she was needed to clean up after them and killing herself to keep them all from dying?

"I…" She stopped and took in a deep breath. "I just need time to wrap my head around this."

It wasn't a yes.

But it wasn't a no, either.

* * *

><p>Stefan finally convinces Bonnie to leave her Grams' house and come with him. He says that they can hold out for a few days until she makes her decision on whether or not she's going to stay and he'll respect whatever her choice is, but she can't keep hiding from Damon, because the aftermath of her lack of presence is making him insufferably moody and a considerably heavy drinker. They've gone through five or six bottles of Bourbon this week alone and Stefan isn't sure he can handle anymore drunken, vampire rages.<p>

She's got the jitters. She can't admit that to herself.

She's incredibly nervous to see Damon again. Between the dreams of his snarky grins and old memories of him taking place of everything she'd ever thought she'd known about him, it frustrates her that she hasn't been able to recall the exact shade of his eyes, because her dreams of him lack saturation and they're so much brighter than she thinks when she sees them up close.

She told herself she came with Stefan because it was what was best for her right now, that it would help her decide exactly where she wanted to be in a year. It had nothing to do with a distant ache in her soul that yearned for her just to be near him, not at all. And even if it were, she constantly had to remind herself that these weren't really her feelings. They were a product of someone else's who existed here before her.

"Now, I warn you. When I said he's been drinking a lot, I mean that he's been drinking nonstop for two weeks straight, even in the shower. He's a mess and you have to excuse his potentially horrifying behavior on the other side of this door, because he's been drunk for days. And it may not sound like a big deal, but it's really hard for vampires to get drunk and stay drunk." Stefan explains as he opens the door to the boardinghouse.

It's quiet on the inside as Bonnie steps over the threshold; there isn't a hair out of place that she can see as she looks around for any sign of this supposed chaos that Damon has been causing. The only off-putting thing is the stench of alcohol that seems to consume every inch of this place. Bonnie and Stefan make it to the commons area where they find a very intoxicated Damon sprawled out on the floor, gripping a bottle of Jack Daniels as if his life depends on it.

"Damon, for the love of _God_, get off the floor." Stefan huffs in frustration.

Damon ignores his brother, keeping his eyes fixed on the ceiling of the home, digging through his brain for a reason to get up and get out of this rut he's in, but as long as there's no Bonnie, there's no real reason.

"The floor isn't really a good look for you, champ." Bonnie chimes in then.

She catches his attention immediately, the sound of her voice breaking him out of the trance he's been in for hours now. He snaps his head up just a little just to get a glimpse of her out of the corner of his eye. He told himself that when she came back – if she ever came back – he knew exactly what he would say, how he would react. He would be angry. He would yell at her for abandoning him the way she did, for ignoring him and giving up on him just like everyone else he let into his life.

He would be upset and tell her how much he trusted her and how betrayed he felt that she wasn't here because she just didn't want to be and she didn't have the guts to tell him that.

And he would be selfish, the most selfish he's ever been, and he'd tell her he loved her. He'd tell her how much he loved her the way the moon loves the sun and aches from all the distance forced between them, the way she tears him up inside like a cyclone in his ribcage, like a goddamn hurricane in his heart. He'd tell her that there was nothing, absolutely nothing, which could ever stop him from loving her in the most shattering, painful, aching, self-destructing way that he could possibly muster.

He'd tell her because he needs her, but she stands in front of him now with her shoulders relaxed, dressed in a navy blue jumper he bought for her, and her hair in sleepy waves down her shoulder, and he feels nothing but relief.

"You're home." He says groggily.

And Damon sounds like he's just woken up, because he feels like he has. Warmth is filling up his gut and he's feeling like his heart should be beating fast at the sight of her, like she should take his breath away, like she put him back together and destroyed him in a way that hurt him so good that he just wants her to do it over and over again, just wants her to keep coming home to him.

But he's drunk and his emotions are heightened like he's new at this and his humanity is overwhelming him.

Bonnie nods, unable to look at his eyes now that she's got the chance. She's terrified he'll see the truth there, terrified he'll look at her and know that she's not his and he's not hers, not really anyway.

"What took so long?" He asks her softly. "I've been waiting and waiting and I honestly was beginning to think that maybe this time you weren't going to come back."

It breaks her heart, it does. She's been spending the last year or so trying to get her Damon to feel something, anything, to show some type of compassion for something other than Elena and here it is right in front of her laying lazy and drunk and spent out on an overpriced rug and it's too hard to look at him, because she just knows that it'll hurt.

"I just had some things on my mind and I needed to deal with them alone."

That was her excuse, that she just needed space.

"Are you okay now? Are you home now?" He asks, because he just needs to know.

"No, I'm not okay, but I'll figure it out as I go." She says, avoiding his second question. "But right now, I need you to get off the floor and let me help you upstairs to your room."

"Our room," He corrects her easily as if it's a commonly made mistake in her wording.

Ignoring him, she kneels next to him and helps him to sit upright. He seems to stay on his own fine, but his head is bobbing slightly from angle to angle as if it's just too heavy for him to hold up. She's seen Damon drink. She's seen Damon buzzed, but she's never seen him, or any other vampire for the matter, drunk in her life and she doesn't know how to handle him. Damon twists his head so he's facing her, but his eyes are closed and a slow smile spreads across his face.

"_And I could write a song a hundred miles long. Well that's where I belong and you belong with me._" He sang to her drunkenly.

That's all it took before she was pulled away from the present into her spiral of unknown memories swirling around in her head. She's no longer kneeling next to the blue-eyed vampire, but giggling as she enters his bedroom.

* * *

><p><em>Damon and Bonnie had both had a bit too much to drink. In human standards, Bonnie hadn't had too much, as it didn't take too much for her to find herself a bit lopsided in the head, but Damon had probably drank his own body weight in tequila tonight and the two of them had just come home from a Coldplay concert at a festival that happened downtown that night. Mystic Falls never managed to get artists like Coldplay, but when they did, it was all Bonnie could talk about to Damon, how happy she'd be if she could see them.<em>

_Of course, for no other reason than to see her smile, he made sure he got hold of tickets for them._

_They enter his room singing Swallowed in the Sea in sync at the top of their lungs, only slightly off key. Damon's got his arms wrapped around the witch's tiny waist from behind and Bonnie finds herself standing on top of his toes, letting him guide her drunken body where he wants it to go. She's elated, filled with sunshine in the middle of the night and all she wants is to never leave his side, because she's quite sure that this is the happiest that she has ever been in her entire life so far._

_"Oh what good is it to live with nothing left to give? Forget, but not forgive, not loving all you see? All the streets you're walking on, a thousand houses long, well that's where I belong and you belong with me, not swallowed in the sea!" They belted together between giggles and Damon's lips pressed against her temples._

_Damon rushes them to his bed where Bonnie finds herself directly under him, their noses just a centimeter apart and their lips not much further. Damon stares into her eyes as if it's the only thing he knows how to do, as if it's the only things he's ever wanted to do was to look at this woman and love everything he sees. Bonnie can't stop giggling, because she's an elated mess when intoxicated and Damon loves that about her, that it seems she finds more happiness than sadness in everything._

_Bonnie cups his cheek with the palm of her hand, stroking slightly, drinking up all of Damon's inhuman beauty until she's feeling drunker and a little dizzier from that alone. Damon takes the opportunity to kiss her like he means it, kiss her until he feels a faint dizziness in his own head, because he's drunk and in love and he's not scared of that thought for the first time since they started this thing between them.  
><em>

_And with his lips still brushing against hers and sharing his breaths with her he sings, "Yeah you belong with me, not swallowed in the sea."_

* * *

><p><em>Oh my god! I'm so sorry how long this took! Over a fucking year. I'm so so so so sorry. I had a series of unfortunate events, all sort of personal, but I didn't abandon this story. This is just the first time in a very stressful year that I've had the opportunity to write ANYTHING at all, but I'm back for sure now :) I just want to thank everyone for reviewing this story still an entire year later and favoriting and following it. it's going to take a while to get used to this way of things on ffnet, but anyway, keep reviewing. It makes me so happy to hear how you guys like the story. Literally warms my heart and gets me going for the next installment.<em>

**Disclaimer: Sadly, I don't own TVD. That's the CW and L. J. Smith.**


	8. Two-Faced Twin

**Two-Faced Twin**.

Bonnie fluttered her eyes open to find her sight enveloped in cozy warmth brought on by the sunlight peeking in from the curtains and light dancing along her caramel skin. There was a light fleece blanket folded over the lower half of her body, which she looked down to find was draped in a tee-shirt that was far too big for her tiny frame. She found herself clinging to a fistful of silk sheets and a warm body pressed hard against hers, iron arms wrapped around her waist and a face nuzzled in the crook of her neck, pale limbs tangled in hers.

Oh god, she was spooning with Damon goddamn Salvatore.

She didn't seem to mind at all up until her consciousness crept up and shook her completely awake, unleashed a heavy panic to settle in her bones, all in her blood, her nerves, and her veins.

She couldn't recall how she made it to his bed, when or how they managed to get upstairs, when and who changed her clothing before crawling into bed, and most importantly, how she willingly snuggled up with Damon. She closed her eyes tight, trying to force herself to remember, to force the memory to the forefront, but it was just a blank space in her mind.

Bonnie had completely blacked out during that portion of her life.

"Oh my god," She whispered to herself.

She was beginning to form holes in real-time placement now, her mind forcing gaping spaces inside of her to make room for the memories that were slipping through the cracks of the dam there. They were all going to come flooding in, completely demolish the only wall she managed to keep up to keep them out for a little while longer and it was beginning. Slowly at first, little dreams and triggers here or there, but now a version of herself that she had been repressing, a version of herself that was completely and madly in love with Damon, was trying to force her way in.

And any version of Bonnie Bennett couldn't be contained for too long.

Bonnie was full of mixed emotions, her other self's and her own. She held some thoughts that didn't belong to her and some that did and the ones that didn't were slowly beginning to overpower them.

She wasn't quite aware of it yet, but she was changing.

Slowly, she lifted Damon's arms away from her waist and lifted herself to sit up in his bed. She pushed her bedhead up and back out of her face in a panic, anxiety filling her. She scanned the body asleep next to hers, bare torso and softly shut eyes.

"So now we're back at the portion of our relationship where you stare at me creepily while I sleep." Damon said groggily, his eyes opening afterward.

Bonnie looked away quickly, her eyes wide with worry and fear. Without word, she scampered out of bed and to her feet, pacing the space between his bathroom and his bed. She bit at her nail beds, a bad habit she picked up when she'd first found out she was a witch, one she thought she'd broken, but abruptly felt the need to pick up again.

"What the hell is happening to me?" She spoke to herself quietly.

"Bonnie, you okay?" Damon asked, pushing himself upright in bed. "You're talking to yourself and it's a little bit weird."

Bonnie looked up at him with urgent orbs, ignoring his comment. "Where's Stefan?" She asked. "I need to talk to him. Like now, right now."

"Downstairs, but what's wrong? Is everything okay?" He questioned worriedly, taking note of the fear swimming in his witch's eyes, but she ignored his curiosity. "Bonnie, talk to me."

Bonnie continued to ignore Damon, instinctively tugging at the black hair tie wrapped around her wrist that she hadn't known she placed there. She walked quickly and with purpose out of Damon's bedroom, trampling down the staircase as she pulled her hair up into a messy bun and called for Stefan repeatedly. He appeared quickly at the end of the staircase, a concerned Caroline following after him.

"Bonnie, what is it?" Stefan asked taking in her perplexed face.

"I can't remember, Stefan." Bonnie whispered to him harshly.

"Can't remember what?" Caroline asked, confusion scrunching up the features in her face.

Stefan's eyebrows furrowed, as he was the only one who knew exactly what she was talking about. He and Bonnie shared an equally fearful look. His questioned what exactly it was that she'd forgotten. Bonnie bit her lip, looking up as Damon stood at the top of the staircase watching intently at the scene right below him. She returned her gaze to the younger Salvatore.

"Whatever happened between us coming in and finding Damon on the floor last night and me waking up this morning is gone. I can't remember anything at all. It's just a blank spot. It's gone."

Stefan's lips parted slightly, but left his coming words to dangle on the tip of his tongue, between his teeth as his eyes flickered up to his older brother, whom of which, was absolutely clueless to what was potentially going on with his girlfriend and had no idea how to help. Stefan knew Damon well enough to say that anger and resentment is all he'd receive if he knew he and Bonnie were keeping secrets from him. He didn't even want to begin to think of how Caroline would react.

"What's gone? Your memory?" Caroline squeaked, fighting to understand.

Bonnie nodded, gulping hard. "I told you guys. My magic is acting up and I'm having trouble with my memory patterns. It wasn't a big deal at first, but now I'm basically blacking out without warning."

It wasn't exactly a lie, but it wasn't exactly the truth, either and the look she and Stefan shared immediately after she said the words confirmed Stefan's question. Were they about to out her to the two of them? Not quite.

Maybe not ever.

"So what do we do then?" Damon asked, making his way down the steps to stand by Bonnie's side. "Do we take you to your Grams' and let her do some witchy ju-ju inside your head to straighten you out?"

Bonnie considered it, but decided against it just as quickly as the thought came. Her Grams wanted her to stay in this world, to not tamper with the balance that the spirits had set for her. Her Grams would encourage her to exhume the part of her that was familiar with this scenery, with these people, with these feelings.

"No," Bonnie said snappily. "Not Grams, she doesn't understand how maddening this is. She gives me tea and tells me to calm down and she wouldn't be comfortable doing the amount of magic it would require to get into my head and roam around for a source and to be honest, I'm not that comfortable with it, either. She'd know everything that's ever happened to me, even _private_ things."

Her eyes flickered to Damon's bare torso then, scanning his toned tummy and defined abs. She shuddered without warning and forced herself to look away. She didn't want her Grams to know she's been silently checking Damon out, either. That may be expected from the Bonnie that belongs here, but not from her and the thought of it was an all-around embarrassing situation waiting to happen.

"Then what do you suppose we do, Bonnie? Let you continue to forget everything at any, given time? Not a chance." Damon said, folding his arms over his chest with finality. "We're going to Sheila."

Bonnie looked up at him incredulously. "Who are _you_ to tell me what I will and won't do, Damon? Look, I know you're worried, but I can do the spell I need by myself without her."

"You already said it required way too much magic for one witch. She's more experienced. Let her deal with it." He argued.

"No, Damon! It's _my_ head. I know my way in and around a lot better than she does and I don't want her to hurt herself just trying to get in. I've taken a lot of precautions on myself to ensure no one can get in my mind without a fight."

"And how do you know you won't hurt yourself?" Damon questioned. "How do you know your magic isn't turning on you and will lay you out the minute you try?"

Damon's eyes were wide with an all-consuming anger and fear and love and passion that Bonnie didn't know what to do with, but she stood her ground against him, taking one shaky step closer to him, her eyes determined and settled.

"Better me than her." She said through tightly gritted teeth.

"I beg to differ." He spat haughtily.

Bonnie tightened her lips in a thin line, eyes burning with rage she wasn't sure she could control. Stefan watched the two of them, only two inches of space between their bodies and Damon's towering height made him seem so intimidating, but Bonnie's lifted head and direct eye-contact made her the witch to underestimate if you were looking for a way to die quickly and still painfully.

"It's my head, my say." Bonnie told him. "You can either get my candles for me or I'll do it myself."

And with that, she shoved past him toward the living room, her spite emitting in the air and mixing with the tension the two of them had caused. Caroline kept her eyes to her feet, fearful that Damon would snap at her, but instead she heard low, incoherent grumbles from Damon as he padded to china cabinet where Bonnie stored her ju-ju candles, as he called them. She covered her mouth as she giggled.

* * *

><p>Damon was stoic on the outside, leaning casually against a beam that made the entrance to the den in the boardinghouse as he watched Bonnie sit in the center of a circle surrounded by red and white candles. On the inside, though, he was wrecked and smothered with his own worry for her. If he were as selfish as he thought he was, he'd have told Bonnie that he'd gladly see her Grams to her grave if it meant he could keep her here alive longer. He wasn't sure Bonnie's death was something he'd survive.<p>

He'd already ruled out the humanity switch, as it was only good for so long and that it never really went off, rather than he built a sudden dam in his heart that allowed his emotions to flow freely and that dam always had a weak point. Sometimes it comforted him to abruptly decide that the day his watch went out, he'd follow right behind her and meet her on the other side.

Bonnie was scared, to say the least.

She wasn't sure what would happen when she came out from caving into herself, who she would be, what she would know, what she would remember, but she didn't want to scare herself out of doing this, because her pride wouldn't allow her to. She settled down comfortably on the cushion Stefan had retrieved for her, because she knew the spell would knock her unconscious.

She shared one look with Damon before she began chanting the spell, her magic awakened by her connection to nature and the spirits that dwelled within it. It pricked at her skin, causing numbness to spread throughout her. She continued to chant the words, though her voice was growing weaker and weaker, as well as her sight. She sounded so far away from herself.

That's when she fell flat and sprawled out on the floor and Damon's breath hitched in his throat.

* * *

><p>She found herself wandering around the boardinghouse again, but she knew that it wasn't necessarily real, because everything seemed to take on a more dream-like quality, a slight blur.<p>

That's when she saw herself, her other self, laying flat on her back on the floor holding a glass of wine in one hand and Damon's fingers tangled in her other. The two of them were laughing together. At what? She didn't know, but still, she stepped closer to get a better look at them. Damon's eyes were shut, but his smile consumed his features. Happiness radiated off of him and bounced around the surrounding area and her other self seemed to breathe it all in and exhale a happiness of her own.

She couldn't remember when the last time she'd seen herself this happy before was.

"That's because, this is the happiest I've ever been." Her own voice said behind her.

Bonnie turned quickly to see another version of herself with curls down to her breasts and vibrant, green eyes staring at her curiously, grinning. She pushed herself from the wall she leaned against and came closer to her. Bonnie's eyes grew wide, taking in her own subconscious. Bonnie was afraid, but she seemed very amused by her.

"Are you…?" Bonnie began, but was cut off by her nodding.

"You? Somewhat," She sighed. "I'm her." She pointed at the Bonnie in her head that was preoccupied by Damon and booze. "I'm the one that you've been dying to keep buried away."

"Why is this happening to me?" Bonnie asked her fearfully.

She watched as her other self shuffled and swayed her way across the room to sit on a table with her legs folded over. She didn't answer at first, simply watched Bonnie with an indifferent expression.

"Nothing is happening to you." She informed her. "You happened to me. I woke up trapped in my own head, completely blocked off from reality and my friends and my Damon."

Bonnie didn't miss the way she referred to Damon as hers, like he was a prize, a possession.

"And the answer to any questions you might have is simple. I. Want. Out." She told her sternly. "You have no idea what you're doing, no idea who you're dealing with, no idea who I even am and you're ruining everything. This is my life and you're getting to live it and screw it up as you please and I'm not okay with it. Since the spirits can't help, as they were fulfilling a special request made by you, I had to do something about it myself."

"By erasing my memories?!" Bonnie shouted angrily, only earning a heavy sigh from herself.

"No, by pushing mine forward when yours were fading. Now that you're here, the world you dropped in on me from no longer exists from the point in which Elena died on Wickery Bridge. Meaning, none of the things you remember about your life exists and how can you have memories of things that didn't happen? I did you a favor. I'm filling in the holes for you. Otherwise, you'd be running around here blank and scared and full of nothing but vacancy and blurs."

Bonnie's eyes filled up with tears and her other self actually seemed concerned for the first time since she'd stumbled upon her.

"Why would you even want to go back?" She asked Bonnie. "You were miserable there. No one loved you. They just used you and used you and you never heard from any of them if you were useless to the cause. They killed Grams. They killed innocent people. They turned Caroline. They brought you face-to-face with real evil without choice. Jeremy was all you had and even that was a bust. Why would you want to go back to that? Here, you have real friends, people who love you, people you come first to. Damon has his humanity and isn't running off snapping necks every five minutes. I've seen everything from your side of life and it isn't a happy place."

And then she said something to Bonnie that stuck, something that made her feel like she had finally come crawling out of polluted air and schemes of smoke. It felt like she was finally getting glimpses of some sort of light, like she was beginning to realize and come to terms.

"There's nothing there for you, Bonnie. Nothing at all and you can't go back to nothing."

* * *

><p><em>I just want to say thank you to everyone who's still supportive to this sorry, even though it took over a year to update. And now we're getting to the actual plot. I keep getting a lot of reviews about Bonnie's iffy-ness to stay in this reality. I just will say that it wouldn't be very Bonnie-like if she simply set everyone else aside and thought of herself. Bonnie isn't selfish and I feel like she would feel like automatically settling down without even trying would be a little bit selfish. Anyhow, keep reviewing. I love to hear you guys' thoughts :)<em>

**Disclaimer: Sadly, I don't own TVD. That's the CW and L. J. Smith.**


	9. THIS ISN'T A CHAPTER BUT PLS READ

heya there, foxes here

i know it's been a pathetically long time since i've updated this story and i've not really got a proper excuse as to why tbh, just a girl in her twenties and life got in the way of any free time i had to write anything, but i've not abandoned this story at all

i was actually mulling over the plot details, reread the things i've posted and realized just how many plot holes there were scattered about here and there (and not to mention how gooey in the middle damon was for bonnie. that was a mistake. damon still needs his edge and i took that from him to suit my idea of a pleasant damon i actually liked) and it got me to thinking that maybe i should just scrap the entire story and rewrite it again, paying more attention to my characters and depicting them better and more realistic (as in closer personality traits to that in the show) and i also wanted to toy around with the beginning to show what bonnie and damon's relationship was like before the big spell shabang

and reading so many reviews from the past and the ones that i still get after over a year of not updating (which still amazes me wow and makes me also feel so fucking guilty) i've been able to fester up new ideas and lots of little plot twists for a rewrite which would, to me, enhance the quality of the story

so leave me a review tell me what ya think

you can even hate me for taking so long to say something

if i decide to rewrite, i'll leave this story up to alert you all with the link to the revamped first chapter!

you guys are the raddest of the rad,  
><em>foxes<em>


	10. NEW MESS OF MOMENTS

Hello there, it's been a while.

I decided to rewrite the story as I want to go in a slightly different direction with the story and there's not really a way to integrate the new ideas into this story. I posted the new first chapter, which is only slightly similar to the old first chapter. It's more of a preface, setting up for the actual plot than it is an actual chapter. I've spent months writing and mapping out for the new plot so go have a looksy if you'd like. I'll be deleting this version of the story entirely sometime soon

s/11125653/1/Mess-of-Moments


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